A Most Genial Companion

 It was a quick supper with few dishes, leaving a large, dark, wind-wild-stormy evening to fill...

You come, my love and keep me company

When winter’s early eve is cold and dark

By musing’s hearth your touch ignites a spark

To kiss the waning light with poetry

The human heart is prone to want, and oh

The want of what is not can rend the air

In spite of what we hold, in spite of prayer

Sometimes silence can probe our longings so

But then you come to me and mediate

In poetry what Time cannot abate

A melody caught on night’s raging storm

Is not deterred where Old Man Winter roars

How is it that Time moves through walls and doors

To taunt touch without filigree or form?

And when it seems that everyone has gone

Upon their miles to go before they sleep

And when the night seems far too dark or deep

And sight would swear that I am all alone

Ah, still you come to dance away the hour

And plant upon the dark a poem-flow’r

Time’s tempest seems to stir the heart of us

And winter-dusk, though brusque captures your eyes

Then let the frigate of day-dreams capsize

And let the ocean in the sky adjust

Its colors to the clock; the cold is kind

-er with the comfort of your kiss to charm

The lips that murmur where the dark is warm

With almost-poems and in them I find

Though often you are overlooked by men

You are a most genial comrade, my pen

© Janet Martin