To Julia, from Prison (after Lovelace)

[RCJames]

When whirling pirouettes
of loving, lovely gypsy girls
fill these chasms, jagged
as they are with tangled
whispers I remember from
your nectar moistened lips,
not any god named
can declare such sovereignty.

When fellowship flows over,
above the confidence of kings,
careless with heart-gone words,
and captures the din, turns it out
into the restless lands of duty,
to your health a toast from me;
skylarks will not in their flight
find such simplicity.

When despondency announces itself,
I’ll celebrate your sweetness,
with voice shriller than linnets
but resonant with devoted sound,
the voice holding us all in thrall
will chorus for your innocent ear;
winds will not sweep more lustily
the deepest canyons redemptively.

I feel the sun by nightmare and dream,
all that’s given me as I lie entombed:
broad daylight always ready for me
alone in memory I shared with you,
promenades, hand to mine, on the strand
your eyes to me the brightest light of all.
The force of desolating solar winds
will never shine as your grace within

Windows, absent from this prison cell,
in my mind make of it a sunlit parlor,
no one can seize the innocent temple
I hold in wait for our next meeting,
because, in freedom your sad face
finds solace now, in my breast,
and an angel’s flight, at a distance,
fast approaching, lucidly, I soft imagine.