WJ:I Walk on Wires

"When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green and gold,
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould;
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, "It's pretty, but is it Art?"

from Rudyard Kipling's The Conundrum of the Workshops

Poetry: Poems of Cyberia

I Walk on Wires

I walk on wires strung across the night
with letters to deliver from her love.
She strolls the edges of her balcony,
but doesn't see me pausing here to watch.
Alone and looking at the slivered moon,
she leans just barely forward at the rail.
Her face is raised, but hidden in the dark;
a light behind her frames her silhouette.
The writer of these notes will never see
her shadow-hair lilt out on moonlit wind
or how in solitude her eyes are drawn
unconsciously and gracefully to light.
She turns to face a puff of breeze and me,
then shivers as I whisper-read the words.
I leave her then, and walk along the wire.
The slice of moon is shining like a fire.

Copyright (c) Bryher, uploaded with permission of the author.

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