Neruda's Symphony

                                                                       "Hilltop", 1927 by Maxfield Parrish

The autumnal plums of your ripened voice 

seduce stars from the night sky with promises of cinnamon;

they fall softly as apples into dappled rhythms of your tender music,

ablaze with laughter, then suddenly become silent, a whispered gasp

delivered within the velvet grasp of your eyes.

Wisdom pales before your altar, belovéd; 

wingéd creatures joyously alight upon your hands, 

dancing slowly, murmuring of Spring's arrival 

as icy brooks melt beneath your warm gaze.

Loam's fresh fragrance precedes your every gentle step;

wildflowers arch into your open palms, besotted

as butterflies pause, mid-air, caught in rapturous flight.  

                          

Sea and shore mingle, teasing with their infinite crescendos -

passions unveiled, performed upon life's salty-sweet stage, 

sotto voce, adagio, never ceasing, ever reaching, always dreaming.

My lips part, yet only a sigh is heard - 

a sigh of a thousand journeys until you were finally found, 

waiting beside a dusty road, within fields where we would frolic 

long past dusk and well into morning. You are my hearth, my home, 

the reason songs pour freely from my throat, undaunted and unafraid.