Amor Eterno II

I'm tired of songs about romance
That died out in the past:
I'm tired of songs about passion,
And how it cannot last.
I'm tired of hearing it fade,
I'm sick of seeing it die,
I hate to think that all my lovers
Will be strangers by and by.

We are signals in the spectrum,
We are waves upon the sea:
The signal flies, the waters flow,
But the pattern in them is me.
The hand that holds my hand today
Is not the flesh it was before.
But let it hold me just the same,
And leave its bags inside my door.

Behind those eyes that smile at me
Resides an awesome mystery:
How do you know that you love me,
And how do you share my history?
When my mind is seizured free,
And I drift in a selfless now,
My hand still loves to hold your hand,
Though joy remembers not who, nor how.

Male or female, young or old,
I do not know, nor know to care,
But hold you in unmemoried bliss;
Of you, though not of self, aware.
Unremembered my meeting you,
Unforeseen my losing you:
That is love in its purest form,
Perfected through and through.

Ákařa dances in the Nameless Land,
Where no birds sing, and no voice speaks.
What stars shine down upon that land,
What suns gleam from its peaks?
Where is the gate to take me there,
How and when must I strive?
Whose are the feet that made the path—
And what will I say when I arrive?

Thou hast forbidden my voice to speak,
Thou hast forbidden my eyes to see.
Thou hast forbidden my arms to touch,
But thou canst not forbid my heart to feel.
When I hear what thou hast suffered,
It is an earthquake in my soul,
Swallowing up my reasoned edifices,
Uncovering embraces long buried.

The hair that once was rich and brown
Has turned to ashen gray:
The lips I'll kiss in a hundred years
Are not yet born today.
The hair that now is shining gold
In fifty years will be white:
The lips I'll kiss in a thousand years
Has ancestors unmet tonight.

One step forward, a hundred steps back,
Every day we lose it all.
The daily things we never write down
Tomorrow cannot recall.
So write, my soul, the lines of fire
That cry out in the nights.
Unexpressed is unremembered:
Unknown love no one requites.

—Calafia
5/31 and 6/27 and 7/4/2002 and 12/28/2017