TRIP TO ELTHAM PALACE POEM 20

Winding through the palace, it was like a house, with little rooms and elegant furnishings. This lodging then led onto a balcony overlooking the hall. It was a great space with stained glass windows. The meetings and entertainments that happened there, must have been quite a thing. Abandoned now, the furnishings were against the wall, no longer there to festoon a place where so many people have met.

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“My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.” Jack Kerouac

Aflame

Perhaps you did not understand my dear,

That times gone by are dear to the heart,

But a flame burns as long as the wick.

People told time by a wick,

So sure is its continuance if shaded,

But if the wind is harsh to a flame exposed,

It goes out.

Without letters or remembrances I do not know of you love,

And so the oil to the flame is not congealed

And ready to light aflame.

So daily I might meditate on those feelings,

But without knowledge of yours,

It is like the air is dense and thick,

This sputters a flame.

I barely know your feeling so contained

They are in your tall demeanour,

And while attentive I know that others

Hold flames dearer and brighter,

That do not need a cover for the fanning.

The love I feel is of friendship,

As the set and match is won already,

By another heart more constant than mine.

There is no rivalry for love to me is natural

And cannot be covered with a jar,

To leave its protected soot on the surface,

Slowly wasting through its modicum of oil,

Till sunset has passed and the repast is through

And lights are in the sky themselves,

Twinkling in perfection,

As full of Romance as a Rose perfected

By the eye of the lover.

There is no rule to measure a candle,

Exposed to the elements,

So my wick full-exposed,

Can burn only as it burns.

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” Albert Camus