Conversations

I bid my heart – that foolish organ – to sing a different song
         To put aside its widow’s weeds, its half-blacks and lavenders,
And today amidst the pink-orange crowning of a different dawn
         To think on a tomorrow free from sorrow, and the wonders
Of a world rich and ripe for wooing.  “Cease your crying,”
         I implore of it, “for we are not yet done, we shall keep trying!”

“For certainly we shall love again.  There must be something left for us.” 
         I wander thusly, a vagabond traipsing the low and high ways,
Patiently search for the one whose charms a fearful heart can trust,
         One who will restore colors to the dawn of even cloudy days.
My heart pretends indifference, as though this quest for love were mine and mine alone.
         But I know it well.  Only in the arms of a new beloved will it find a home.

My heart – you own it still, despite your treachery and wicked wiles –
         Had until then no familiarity with the fickle faithful, a true rarity;
So there is a moment upon every waking where it forgets, and is all smiles –
         Love a gravitational singularity, an instant of infinite perfect clarity –
Only to feel anew those betrayals, to learn to live again now that you have left.
         Upon remembering, it mourns – a wailing lament, songs of the bereft.

“No,” it sighs, racked with pain and tears, “to try again is not worthwhile.
         I feel no need to seek betrayal’s sting, to wallow in its agony.
We have loved, loved perhaps too well, and met with only lies and guile,
         Fooled again by a beautiful profile or words dripping with honey.
To try again for love?  Nonsensical,” my heart cries.  “And in doing so much peril.
         Better to be barren, hardened by countless perfidies, and made sterile.”

Now it is my heart that lies, its beating frantic; the protests too loud and strong
         To be anything other than the disconsolate musings of one afraid to blunder.
“True enough,” I say, showing its cowardice no mercy, “love has come and gone.
         But shall we let the traitors win, let them run off to enjoy their plunder?
Or shall we venture forth like brave men to love again, that victory within our grasp?”
         A weak fluttering, a brief stuttering, it – that valiant organ – answers yes
with a gasp.