Hiatus

Has she dried the pen at last?
Is the ink only made of turmoil and trouble?
And have I found in the banality of contentedness
Some temperance for the madding thought?

Ours could be a quiet life, picturesque
As a Christmas cottage in Kinkadian glow,
A tree alit and baubled aplenty,
We, snowed-in but fire-warmed.

Would I then take to the page once more?
It may be I’d only written to release
The self-invented and invited terrors
Who had once awoken both torment and genius.

Now, though, the demons do not sleep;
They are gone entirely–a house swept clean.
A breath, a sigh, a relief–a pause and a hiatus
From what? From grief? From tears? From writing?

And if they have fled, will the poetry elude me, too?
Do I give up one for the other,
Forever choosing half a life:
Great and precious, or modest and well-loved?

I daren’t doubt the maxim of the lonely… unless–
Unless I found another with whom to be lonely together.
Then I might still be precious and great–
In her eyes, at least–and lonely toward the world at large.

But we two might cling one to another
In every year, in every season.
‘Til the world forgot us both,
We would lie in each other’s arms.

High and valiant, she is, and full of renown.
Now the Shadow is departed and we are merry,
For the sun has driven away our wintered hearts
And we love all things green and growing and beautiful.

And then we might write–write now:
Write of ruin and the world’s ending.
Then we might cause word and song
To spring forth from love-blest lips.

I left home one day to write my adventures–
And adventures I have had: travails and toils,
Cause for grief, cause for shame;
I have learned and lost for a lifetime.

But though the adventure is not over,
Its nature has changed forever;
Still I will choose to write them.
(Think of the glory of the choice!)

“And so he came back up the hill,
As day was ending once more…
He drew a deep breath.
‘Well, I’m back,’ he said.”