Hearthside
Michael R. Burch

“When you are old and grey and full of sleep...” — W. B. Yeats

 

For all that we professed of love, we knew

this night would come, that we would bend alone

to tend wan fires’ dimming bars—the moan

of wind cruel as the Trumpet, gelid dew

an eerie presence on encrusted logs

we hoard like jewels, embrittled so ourselves.

 

The books that line these close, familiar shelves

loom down like dreary chaperones. Wild dogs,

too old for mates, cringe furtive in the park,

as, toothless now, I frame this parchment kiss.

 

I do not know the words for easy bliss

and so my shriveled fingers clutch this stark,

long-unenamored pen and will it: Move.

I loved you more than words, so let words prove.

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Previously published on The HyperTexts​​

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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, Burch’s total publications would be well over 20,000. Burch has also had 74 poems set to music by composers, from swamp blues to classical. Burch 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. His full biography may be read here.

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