When will I sing this song for you?
For I may never know again
the touch of your hand quiet
upon my shoulder while the light
you have brought to my window
illuminates the crowd we watch below.
When will I sing this song for you?
For when time has passed
and the clock has chimed,
the clock has chimed four,
on the edge of the winter
where all must sleep the long sleep
dressed in the whitest blankets of delusion
from the quickness of the dark,
will you heed my wordless voice
in the ebon retreat of silence
while you stand transfixed
by the sight of your mother in the mirror?
(How young she has become in your thoughts,
how old you have become in her dreams.)
For in the night’s refuge
in the innermost breeze of the soul,
in the night’s refuge
if I would call your name,
if I would reach for your hand,
would you come,
could you possibly come,
for that instant, for only that instant,
when time has stopped
and the clock has chimed,
the clock has chimed four,
and we watch a star so far away
where no one is afraid of the light?
Even if everyone would know
that under the sanctuary of a pale moon
my creation still begins where you fill
the clouds of my tallest thoughts with the desire
to touch the sorrow you find in your own reflection?
(Is to long for you a sin . . .
a glorious sin . . .a voluptuous sin . . .
a sin best left to the narcotic repose of the past?)
When will I sing this song for you?
For you have heard the story
of the sad fairy in the ocean:
I ask you not for her rebirth or death,
I ask only to sit quiet at your feet
and listen long to her magic flute in your voice
at the onset of another cold season
in a room where despair is as deep and fast as the sky
yet as narrow as the image of your gaze
slowly combusting in the memory of my eye.