WHITE SYMPHONY

Forlorn and white,

Whorls of purity about a golden chalice,

Immense the peonies

Flare and shatter their petals over my face.

They slowly turn paler,

They seem to be melting like blue-grey flakes of ice,

Thin greyish shivers

Fluctuating mid the dark green lance-thrust of the leaves.

Like snowballs tossed,

Like soft white butterflies,

The peonies poise in the twilight.

And their narcotic insinuating perfume

Draws me into them

Shivering with the coolness,

Aching with the void.

They kiss the blue chalice of my dreams

Like a gesture seen for an instant and then lost forever.

Outwards the petals

Thrust to embrace me,

Pale daggers of coldness

Run through my aching breast.

Outwards, still outwards,

Till on the brink of twilight

They swirl downwards silently,

Flurry of snow in the void.

Outwards, still outwards,

Till the blue walls are hidden,

And in the blinding white radiance

Of a whirlpool of clouds, I awake.

Like spraying rockets

My peonies shower

Their glories on the night.

Wavering perfumes,

Drift about the garden;

Shadows of the moonlight,

Drift and ripple over the dew-gemmed leaves.

Soar, crash, and sparkle,

Shoal of stars drifting

Like silver fishes,

Through the black sluggish boughs.

Towards the impossible,

Towards the inaccessible,

Towards the ultimate,

Towards the silence,

Towards the eternal,

These blossoms go.

The peonies spring like rockets in the twilight,

And out of them all I rise.