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He stared into the candle
his thoughts without a cause
A moment's hesitation
when a poet's hand would pause

Of castles evermore
from chances left too late
Nothing said within
his soul could not create

Darkness sat beside him
the candle seemed so dim
The velvet glove of silence
that stole his spirit's vim

Then through the quiet room
came an echo of despair
Soft crying in the night
that filled the moonlit air

The poet could only wonder
of the weeping that he hears
So fearlessly he ventured on
toward the calling tears

Beneath the greatest oak
a brilliance did abound
Frantic full with sorrow
a fallen Muse he found

The rapture of it all
filled him up inside
A moment lost in time
from which to walk beside

"Why, oh fallen muse
do you sit here all alone?"
She sat there poised and paused
in silent reticent tone

"You seem so melancholy
is there something I can do?"
And then she gazed upon his face
her eyes were clouds of blue

"To what, dear poet, do I owe
such eternal gratitude?
I inspire none the more
and have been cast to solitude."

"I am but a simple Muse
I incite the poet's heart."
He remembered words he couldn't write
it tore his soul apart

He knew the reason why
for this fallen muse's curse
The silence in his thoughts
for timeless words in verse

"Before the dawn becomes the day
I'll return you to the light.
I'll cast away your spell
and soothe away your endless night."

Her eyes were shut with promises
to reckon her dismay
The poet left her there
taking care to find his way

Returning to his dwelling place
and to the candle's glow
Like flowing rivers in the spring
he expressed for all to know

From that which held him back
had surely passed him by
Answers to the questions
in lyric songs to fly

To keep his promise true
he went to find his Muse
For dawn had broken way
her hex would soon diffuse

Yet beneath the father oak
he saw no tempest bound
And in her resting place
beauty blossomed from the ground

A brilliant rose of deepest red
that bloomed before his eyes
From joyous content he wept
her gift to him of no good-byes

2016 Kelly R. Sullivan