Mansuetude

        Mansuetude

Attentive as the movelessness of dusk,

The immobililty of midnight on

A temple pond, as still as silk-caught musk

Inside a drawer of sandalwood at dawn,

She waited.  She expected on her knees

Some sight of Him, some smell, a holy tone—

Perhaps a vowel—from his lips, a breeze

Of assignation from his throat.  Alone

She waited, quiet as a petal seeks

The moon, a prophetess her angeled moan.

Yet in the skyless darkness no one speaks.

..As silent as a fatal jewel in

….Dawn’s diadem, she brooded on His sin.