NeverSummerNights

On these never-summer nights, when the air of my life

Forms clouds that hover about me,

I raise my arms to distant chips of bitter ice knowing only

That somewhere, under this uncordial mantle, you are;

Even though those dark, sweet hours when it was

Your hand that I held by this very frosted moon are forever lost.

My soul is one with this winter night.

This ice that kisses me when the wind blows is enough,

It burns my shadowed face like your kisses never will again.

But still, my tears should not freeze to my face-

Each day I spend without you is cold enough without the mockery of winter.

So I lay me down, under a diamond blanket, to rest at last

Wondering now and ever more, by what storm came you here. 

fin del año

“I had not known the sudden loneliness of having it vanish,the moon in the sky of dawn.”

                                                      -The Tale of Genji

This is the death of the year,

These last, precious days when

All my world is the silence of snow

And memories of you, slow as if covered by ice.

These are the last days of my recollections,

The final thoughts of late kisses and midnight dreams.

Every day, all hours, each second that passes

Burns you indelibly onto my soul

With a heat the ice of this world never cools,

Just this cognac shall never warm me

As fully or as completely as you.

These are the last hours,

Soon what I am shall be no more;

The substance of these words less than

The memory of a snowflake while

Nestled in the bosom of June.

I cherish the nights made nutritious by your smile

And I long to regain August while in the heart of winter.

Stretching each hour, always aware of the passing seconds,

I lick the face of my watch to taste the essence

Of the times we spent loving,

Of all the words between us,

Of every passion we ignited,

Every dream we gave birth to.

But this is the death of the year

Spring’s promises and summer’s heat

Gone just as surely as autumn’s leaves,

And your hand gone forever from mine.