FOR LOST LOVERS

Next unto this Planete of love
The bright Sonne stant above...
(John Gower: Confessio Amantis, vii, 801 - 2)

The sun stands in the abyss of giving, and gives;
all in his corridor among the receding stars,
the vaporous yield of the field of wildfire, lives
by his yielding.  The keen path of Mars,
Earth's powdered highway upon emptiness,
and Venus' glittering zone, hold from his deep
music of bounty, balance of duress
by which together being spun they sleep.

Standing where all is well, he draws to him
by gravity of love what else would lie
rolled in those flying caverns on whose rim
of segregation they both seek and fly
the ardour of possession - and yet swing
forever home; neither can reel nor break
their tense their singing distance; they must sing
to the racked windlass and the vibrant lake.

For every broken coupling lashes hard
even in breaking, the act, the memory
of its united strains: there is one chord
by which all planets and all stars are free
in consort who would die in unison.
Follow the paths of the receding stars:
even the centre of your light is one,
and may not turn aside to follow yours.