Impossible Undoing

If there was an undoing of certain things

I would gently loosen time’s tempered strings

And trace the scars that it has left

As I lay my head upon your chest

Then as past and present blend

Once more, you would be my friend

Moonlight seeps through the shutter-crack

A golden ladder on your back

Midnight is master of its craft

It strikes a current in the draft

And moans a haunting, sad refrain

Of things that will not pass again

A moment has no time to spare

It dangles briefly on the air

Before it slips into the past

Its latch secure and iron cast

The racket of our turmoil swept

Into the vaults where it is kept

It there was an undoing of certain things

My trembling fingers would loosen its strings

Slipping love’s sorrow from your chest

And we would leave its cloak to rest

While hours strike, one, two, three, four

Upon a sweet, forgotten shore

J~

The Sunday Whirl