Fortress

Poem

Some nights you
come like
a sainted acquaintance and
assume me.
Some hours you
are
a sylph in
a drifting sun.

I will not seek your
refuge —
hallowed castle of
love’s
conceit —
because it is flawless,
with a
face eternal
and unscalable height, and
I am
maculate —
I know now.

But you return;
and I am
aching with
the leaves
in Connecticut dusk
in October,
conjuring a perfect letter
from our future
garden, dense
with blooms of
improvisation and
your light.

Now it’s dried, and
I don’t find you
in the kingdom of hermits
or Hardy’s country;
but you
always return;
and I am
mason
of the vale — my hands coarse
with the grit of the world,
and sinewed from its grapple;
yet a garden succeeds
in the ripening sun
of the day,
and it blazes with
fierce petals of a soul
achieved of
its song.

I will embrace
you,
ever,
dear friend when
we saunter its arcades, and
you can
dance to me,
again,
of its
unflinching arches and
impeccable stones —
cruel majesty
in the mortal ray.

more by JUN HUA EA

Photograph by JUN HUA EA