Provence*

Who but me knows the precise thrill
       that rises out of the deeplyness
of your beauty — a beauty steeped
       in the tenderness of your gesture
a beauty beyond definition
       that tears language apart
that reduces poetry
       to a meaningless rubble
of senseless sentiment
       It is not that the fabric of your skin
is softer than any silk
       though it is that too
nor that your smile floods
       whatever space you occupy
with a savage starlust
       of almost unbearable brilliance

No
       The memory of fields of lavender
of orchards overburdened
       with the fragrance
of competing blooms
       the wild perfumes that rose up
from a land soothed
       by the summer breeze
vineyards swept
       by the wayward dusts of Provence
and on the Mediterranean shore
       the fine pilgrim sand
that shifts so slowly in time
       Those were restless days
and months and years
       now long gone
a remnant glimmer that
       with undimmed youth
I hold in my eye
       a beauty that knows no repose
matched by a sweet desire
       that will never die

John Lyons

*The above poem was inspired by the following line,”Who out of deeplyness rose to undeath”, taken from a poem by e.e. cummings, published in 1931 in a collection entitled W [ViVa]. To read the whole of the poem by cummings click here http://plagiarist.com/poetry/3713/.