The Mystic Marriage
The fountain is stopped now
That made its water-noise
Into the small hours. Years ago
You thought it was rain,Now, you sleep through everything
With the window open—
Late night jazz, a couple quarrelling,
Headlights, one mosquito.‘It is three o’clock
In the morning. I am going
To the lovers’ bridge
In white mist, without you . . .’I wake from that dream
Towards daybreak. You beside me
Still sleeping.
You were never a dawn person.The fountain is on again.
Whole years have passed. And still
We have never left the south—
From which, if ever, each returnsEternally changed, or not at all.
A white noise of swifts
Outside. Swallows sipping
Old dregs of misery—The drained glass on the wooden table
Slowly filling with light.
And suddenly, a crash of bells
From Saint John of MaltaHard by, and two flights down,
Approaching, lifting the spell,
A river of children’s voices
Growing and growing, out of the future,
• • •
Pure annunciation. Just in time
I retrieve it, like a dream transcript—
Our mystic marriage. Something, at last,
Has earthed itself inside you.by Harry Clifton
from The Boston Review,
July/August 2010