Isolde's Song
Michael R. Burch

Through our long years of dreaming to be one

we grew toward an enigmatic light

that gently warmed our tendrils. Was it sun?

We had no eyes to tell; we loved despite

the lack of all sensation—all but one:

we felt the night’s deep chill, the air so bright

at dawn we quivered limply, overcome.

To touch was all we knew, and how to bask.

We knew to touch; we grew to touch; we felt

spring’s urgency, midsummer’s heat, fall’s lash,

wild winter’s ice and thaw and fervent melt.

We felt returning light and could not ask

its meaning, or if something was withheld

more glorious. To touch seemed life’s great task.

At last the petal of me learned: unfold.

And you were there, surrounding me. We touched.

The curious golden pollens! Ah, we touched,

and learned to cling and, finally, to hold.

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Mike’s notes: “After the deaths of Tristram and Isolde, a hazel and a honeysuckle grew out of their graves until the branches intertwined and could not be parted.“

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Michael R. Burch is one of the world’s most-published poets, with over 11,500 publications, including poems that have gone viral. This does not include self-published writings; if self-published writings were included, Mike’s total publications would be well over 20,000. Mike has also had 74 poems set to music by composers, from swamp blues to classical. He is also a longtime editor, publisher, and translator of Jewish Holocaust poetry and poems about the Trail of Tears, Hiroshima, Ukraine, the Nakba, and school shootings. Mike’s full biography may be read here.

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Isolde's Song Michael R. Burch

Isolde's Song
Michael R. Burch