The End of Alogia

Strange like melting snow, sad sure,

And forgetful,

But holy and cheerful, strange sure,

But kind.

I'm feasting on the meat of the last good freeze

And dreaming of a love that was couched

Somewhere in my peripheries and cooly slipped

At long last in front of my starved eyes.

I've longed for a love incontestable,

A certainty indescribable which would bear down

On the tower of habit I've built to trap myself.

Strange sure, lacking words

Yet being happy with the fact.

Oh bristling calm and blooming blight,

Oh dying corpse of the brilliant bright

Bastion aching in its too-young-white

Decay which kept me and fed me,

Read me stories of yesterdays not yet come

And hid my soul from the blaring light,

Made me a forgetful man, a child too old,

Oh walls, crumble,

Oh mortar, chip away to nothing,

Be gone, be gone and leave nothing

But if you must leave something,

Leave the only thing worthy of words --

Leave hope,

For in hope there is an subversion

Too gorgeous for its name

Branding on every broken brick a song;

Let's not call it hope.

Let's play like alchemists and give the thing another name,

A magic word to rid the world of cold:

Let's call it "spring" but mean love

And joy and decency and kindness.

Let's know the thing unnamed and name the thing unknown

And smile at our little trick, this spell which does nothing and everything

All at once.