Astrophel.

[cielamara]

I Have Held The Sun

I once sought to stir a nearby star,
to reach out into a great and desolate darkness,
where the very air bore
the tender and fragile brushstrokes
of eternal Winter's art.

The stars were but faraway candles
so close, just brushing my eyelids
as I wakened and as I dreamed,
flickering away the minute I reached out,
elusive as fairies,
elusive as love.

And then I leaned in and whispered,
"Come to me, come to me,"
and a small star came closer and closer--
till it was no star, no faraway candle,
but the very sun itself.

I have held the Sun in my hands,
I have been burned and branded with its fire
It has spilled like Eastern silk
through my fingers, over my palms,
and I have been illuminated.
But was it me that held the Sun,
or was it the Sun that grasped me,
heating my hands and my face,
as I flew on Apollo's chariot?

The Sun fills my day like sweetened wine now,
I am drunk and I am blind in the afternoon languor.
But the Sun haunts my nights more and more,
stirring me like a star, melting the dripping frost
from my nights and my dreams,
the trees in the forests in my mind
suck in a deep green breath
as the Sun frees them from this Winter.
They cannot breathe without it--
I cannot breathe in the Sunless air!
O, come to me, sweet Sun!
Deliver me from the Winter
of not knowing your warmth.