Black Poem by Linda Marie Van Tassell

Black is the evening as I try to understand
why love is left lonely, discarded at sea,
so tired as it struggles to reach the land,
drowning in sorrow inside of me.

And sadder still is the dreary breaking of morn
that has no sunlight to cheer the sky.
The gray clouds linger, drifting hence forlorn,
a semblance of love, how it is bound to die.

And more than desolate, I wake and rise,
leaving my heart, which is sleeping still,
upon the bed that has drowned in the cries
that creep up and across the window sill.

The tears, they fall to the hapless ground;
and I walk upon the tears once again.
My tired eyes see that the flowers around
have all withered beneath the salt and pain.

Sad love weeps behind the veil of night;
and the whole thing seems pointless, so vain.
What use the dreams, the desires and delight,
that struggle as though they can never be again?

How shall I stand it, these sad thoughts repeat?
How can I stand where the strongest trees bend?
It is always a blessing that dies bittersweet,
so savage and cruel, it becomes in the end.

How shall I linger in the memories of your face,
in the dreams I shall never know?
I shall whither, a flower, outside your embrace,
the spark to dwindle, the tears to flow.

What is the point? There is nothing to it
if neither you nor I
dare to taste of the passion we lit,
if we suffer our hearts to die.

What point indeed is there if you run
against the wind and all you know and see,
if you deny it, deny me, deny the sun,
if you pretend that we never can be?

Black is the morning which finds me forlorn.
There is no promise in the heavens above.
Pale and contemptuous is the chilly morn
that has broken the wings of the dove.