Early or late you woke
\nto revive the waning fire.
\nNumb asleep I still could hear<\/p>\n
splinter the shingle you broke,
\nagainst closed lids see flare
\nthe flash as kindling took.<\/p>\n
I was roused by sleight
\nand saw, crouching in a nimbus
\nof flame stirred up from embers<\/p>\n
a sylph afire, a sprite,
\nthe camber of your members
\nbathed in amber light.<\/p>\n
*** Such internally rhymed poems were unfashionable in the early 80s when the cult of sincerity ruled and artifice was shunned, as if the two qualities are contradictory. This little song was sent forth to multiple literary journals, to no avail. \u00a0At one point it fell to serve as tinder in another fire as I passed through a periodic purge of my vanities. Fortunately, I retrieved it from an old typescript I had lost track of and can now revive the moment of incipient desire it celebrated. As we approach the end all we have is vanities, <\/em>maybe\u00a0all that memories are. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Early or late you woke to revive the waning fire. Numb asleep I still could hear splinter the shingle you broke, against closed lids see flare the flash as kindling took. I was roused by sleight and saw, crouching in a nimbus of flame stirred up from embers a sylph afire, a sprite, the camber … <\/p>\n
\nNo foreboding of separation here, so this is not an alba by the strict rules of that old\u00a0Proven\u00e7al genre. Also, its setting\u00a0is\u00a0predawn, the light pictured therein\u00a0emerging\u00a0from an open stove rather than through a window. <\/em><\/p>\n