Sonnet of Impressions

For my heart there is no sturdy bulwark

To guard it from the candor of your sigh

Mingling with the essence of the blue dark

Ghostly profusion dripping from the sky

Caught in the throat of midnight’s moody breeze

The elements of love and longing sweep

For naught can thwart the flow of memories

They rise and fall like billows of the deep

As yesterday adapts the muted robe

Of centuries that form the stricken dust

The milkweed flings its silk across the globe

Heedless of where its candid seed is thrust

But we, the author of our private woes

Can never its full secrecy disclose

***

Wrapped in the velvet pleasure of your smile

Is all the goodness of this world I ask

It warms me when another’s lips are vile

And lifts the mundane shadow from my task

Should worry taunt me with its formless fear

Or paint its dread upon my gleaming eye

Its blighted ruse is naught but tarnished cheer

It cannot quell the rushing of your sigh

I touch your lips that brush against my cheek

Miles cannot cool their warmth breathing within

I trace the tender curve of words you speak

And seal their kiss in vaults beneath my skin

For we, the keeper of love’s sweet caress

Choose to conceal its sacred tenderness

***

Life paints upon the canvas of our souls

Its intimate and panoramic art

Where none can know the murmur that consoles

Or runs translucent fingers through our heart

And no one else can see the artists brush

Or feel the splash of shadow, dark and light

What tone consumes the dim October hush

Or mingles with the teardrops of the night

Who leaves the imprint of delight within our sigh?

Or tears the lining from our hidden deep

Who lights the spark of passion in our eye

Or knows what we applaud or why we weep?

But we, the lone spectator of the whole

Can see life's pictures painted on our soul

J~