Soot and Ash

Alas, my darling, I am not a poet.

But as my feelings for you are

Such that only poets would express,

--

I will try - as so many times before -

To say what I can't, to be who I'm not

And in the end become much, much less:

--

I loved you, of that I am certain.

In this blizzard of life you were hearth

Whom we so fanned, it seems in vain,

--

For fires, by nature, are things that go out -

And to wherever went your flames,

My darling, there too went my chilling heart.

--

What about fire is but apparent to the eye

I wish was equally known of love:

Fire is a helpless fiend that must be fed,

--

My darling, it even could be surely said

That as fire unfed is in a sense already dead

Love, too, will begin to trudge off to its tomb.

--

I suppose these words may sound empained

But I cannot say that I was burned,

Rather consumed,

For I loved you so, my darling,

That when nothing was left to feed the flames

I gave myself --

--

And I only hope you know, my darling:

I loved you so that I did endeavor,

In this pursuit of being together forever,

To stay by you not in dreams of what could have been,

But as the remains of a hearth from yesterwhen.

--

For as the kindered kindling dwindled

Just before the final embers crushed,

Darling, in this hearth I found our eternity:

Soot mixed with the ash of a once ardent heart's dust.

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