A Winter Kingdom

Poetry

A poem by Madhuri

There’s a moat around our castle
A thousand miles wide
– I do not hear a bugle
That someone wants to ride
Across a bridge we do not have.
She’d have to bring her own –
I hear the wind from far away
Like someone on the phone.

House in winter

If you looked into our window
Here is what you’d see
A face suffused with wrinkles
Like something lost at sea.
A bitter pit, like peaches have,
Where my heart used to be
Before I sold it, inch by inch,
While waiting to be free.

If you looked in the window
You’d see a polished stair
A lissome lady mounted it
– A hag came down from there.
If you looked in the window
A shining floor you’d see
– That lady stoops to mop it
In sad captivity.

The winter’s harsh on all the plains
And bare is every tree
– The castle’s warm, the lights are lit,
The King is counting fees.
The closets hung with velvet,
And wine is in the store
The bison’s in the oven
I hear his hoofbeats roar.
The lady’s bent to sewing
And silent is her lack:
No word, no song, no dance,
So long –
No horse, no kirk,
No courtiers lurk
To flirt with foolish chance.
No ladies lounge with earnest hand
Enfolded in my own
While murmuring like Oracles
Enchants the Palace gloam.

The wind runs over Kansas
At night there is a train
As long as a strong river
Taking coal across the plain.
The bed is big, the covers fine,
Rare cashmere’s not so soft –
Man and lady back to back
Sleep holds their dreams aloft:
She flies the skies like autumn geese
With joyous bray, wings wide
He clasps two wheels between his knees
And lightning crowns his ride.

 

Poem and photo by Madhuri, Jan. 2012, Weston

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