© Steve King
All rights reserved
At last must I surrender all device,
though I shall have you here in any case.
Finally the evening’s crowd has passed,
and we are gathered well in solitude.
All things undone must linger in their place
and words unspoke must echo where they will;
large moments to give way to emptiness,
while we rehearse regrets for latter days.
This silence will beget the better voice
to move each note of mending through its way;
so between us there need be no cue,
no hardened rhetoric to stir the air;
just the knowing and the conjoinment
of old desires, ancient isolate hopes,
alive now in this spirit of new yearning.
Here then is the center we must hold,
and surety that we dare not efface,
no matter how the futures may incline.
We must abide while all old dreams unwind,
and as confusions rally in full throat.
This world does not offer us a choice:
all things move and we must stand aplace.
It is the beginning and end of time,
where all and nothingness at last collide,
where only instinct guides amid the rush,
and quick surmises serve forevermore.
I have never held to things so much,
nor kept a faith that served me all these days—
this sheltered hold alone must fend the fates,
and such adversities as may befall.
Though ageless dreams are all the while displaced,
and artifice has often sealed our ways,
this presence must endure, this hope remain,
‘til darkness does descend, and stillness reign.
Note: "Surrender" will be posted on http://dversepoets.com/ Open Link Night. Please visit there!
