No Defeat On Love Poem by jim hogg

Stillness called me here
where bitter stars are few.
From shadow to shadow
the night is yours.
Senses sharpen,
faint galaxies approach
attentive and glistening,
invisible wings beat overhead
across this darkening loch
as castle lights fall dim
and fell the walls of time
to give us this stage again
under spotlights
of endless possibility.
Or so we might have thought
had we been older,
for innocence is blind,
groping in vain for us now.
But in the embrace of your night
regret holds no dominion.

The sweetest comfort reigns
in the aftermath of a love
woven not by chance
or by choice alone,
but for you and I to win or lose.
For nowhere is it written
that such and such must be.
And though moves may be forced
by history unfolding,
the end remains unknown
until it flies or falls.

Yet even this parting and its taint
inflicted no defeat on memory,
no defeat on love.
In the beginning
it was the little things;
In the end
it was everything.
Losing it is beyond me now.
And here,
where something of us plays on,
by the light of the indefinable
by the flowing depths
of the unwitting wisdom
of this heretical universe
I am thankful.


12 01 07