My arms feel empty, after holding you
These many hours—brief as now they seem;
Like waking from the splendor of a dream
To find the dreamed-of vanished back into
His unseen realm of the ethereal.
As gleam of moonlight in a shrouded sky,
These days shone forth among the rest; and I
Saw in our parting my sure burial
In longing: heightened thus, and not fulfilled.
But welling from the depths, I find instead
A reservoir of peace: my heart is filled,
My spirit nurtured, my desires fed;
And I can sleep again, the clamor stilled
By your warm presence cradling my head.
September 20, 1992