A Night Prayer Poem by Barry Van Asten

Dark sentinel of the ways:
My heart has given to the strange;
This ache of sadness torments my days
When I am lost of all your change.

And sufferings in childhood, long ago,
Have returned to see me half as deep:
This longing haunts my spirit so
And time erodes that which I cannot keep.

But love, the force that broods my mind
From depths, the white palsy of despair...
Life's tapestry lies oft' handsome lined
In the soft curls and twilight of your hair;

To measure the lone tide whence you came
On moth wings that beat back an eternal sky;
The sweet cauldron kisses that flame
From lip to lip, and eye to eye.

And if I could in scented idyll dream
Of that perfection and that pain
That carries me on its silver stream
Of love: a prayer will join us once again.