The Sun Rose Once
Beside Our Farther Coast
“And my dark soul is happy again, because it
does not know how to be anything else for very
long, and because the pain is a deep dark sea in
which I would drown if I did not sail my little
craft steadily over the surface, steadily towards
a sun which will never rise.”
~ Anne Rice, The Tale of the Body Thief
I’ve often wished that I could say, as fact,
That deep within my soul I glory in
A blackness nonpareil. If you abstract
My spirit, though, to assay it for sin,
My darling scientist, the worst that hunt
Would find, the only major sinful fault
Would be that I took far too long to shunt
My life to where my roaming heart could halt
In front of you in reverence. At least
I should have found the quiet path that lead
To meditation in your shrine. That feast
Awaited me, that meal of holy bread
Upon the altar at the distant side
Of Dead Sea shores where we had been denied.