When the Present has Passed
A. M. Wheatley

When the Present has passed by on my stay
                 and June has exploded in sudden sun.
                        The dew-trodden grass is autumn-wreathed,
my will o’ wisp noticed no decay,

Will the swift discoveries of terrestrial truth
           be varnished by my clay-footed work?
                           The harvest-lit soil interrupted by struggle
and the hearth grown cold by misuse.

The answers then, that draw me thus
                   expand on blue-bolt’d horizons,
                               Draw the key from skeins of misty silk,
complain of my lack of trust.

Where thoughts thin and fervently spoken
             belong to the clouds and the rain.
                          If, I, by dusk of October scape,
Loose geese in a clear-skied token.

Do the full-starred heaven look down in reply
               And remember black-eyed susans
                          Or the fiction of gold candlelit nights
and miss the cross breeze entirely?

On the gentle eve of inspiration,
                 Time has donned winter wings,
                              Harken’d to the old raven’s cries
shadowed by a spindled creation.

Would the heather’d pangs of lonely haunts
               be tethered by meadow creaks
                            and skipping stones trapped by myths
gathered in places forgotten?

When I’ve witnessed the birth of Eden,
                seen prairie-stained sketches of dawn;
                               the haystacks of Elysian fields unfold;
the drowning of the fire-blazed sun?

If, I, by some miraculous chance
              could pass with the shadows below.
                            Would darkened doors open and sigh
treasuring the ashen dance?