THE WALL

Something hates
A world of fertile joy,
As if iron maidens
Planned the human fray.
  

Oh life --
Sad substance
To dread shadows
Borne on rash winds
Scattering petals,
Unsheathing thorns,
To seed agonies of remorse
And a melancholy toll.

Are graves and pain
The forms to shape
The soul to bear
The reign of tears?
Something's there
To keep a balance
Between despair
And repair.

Something hates
A broken wall.

When time
And temporal fires
Touch us all
To temper
Resignation
And shaft our courage
Through agonizing tears
And pain,
Something pities us
And raises hopes again.

Beyond the burning wall,
The broken wall,
Love's sweet tones
Reverberate through
Airy corridors of time
To sing of rhapsodies
Reborn.     

© 1997 by Pasqual S. Schievella