Marble halls vast and gray

Marble halls vast and gray
In the caverns of my mind display,
The passing thoughts and lasting
Moments unforgot by memory’s casting
Die and willow branches,
Brushing past unnoticed chances
For faith, hope, and love.

The maze stretches clear and deep,
For beyond the keep of memory speaks
The whisper softly fading
Calling calmly, then abating;
Begins anew for want of answer.
The sound grows grim like a cancer,
One that would devour me.

“Know thyself,” I hear it say,
And I cannot help obey
To wander after
The chanting, silence, and the laughter
Through the labyrinth within
Hung with living tapestries of sins
I celebrate and cannot bear to remember.

Those cherished threads from the loom
Where once I wove the fabric of my doom
Reach for me with scarlet fingers
Though the whisper calls I dare not linger
To rediscover those carmine crimes
I flee the hall in space and time
From before the now and after of myself.

Here I hide among the willow-wands
Beneath the canopy of silver fronds
Ringing gently with a voice of their own
They drown the echo from the halls of stone
And comfort me with slender arms
So almost I forget vermilion charms
And wonder why the willow thrives.

In my childhood its seed was planted
Watered by the rainfall slanted
To quench the spring’s green thirst
Of the Garden from before the chosen curse
Of knowledge came to pass
When mankind began to pace and grasp
Despite the living fruit of paradise.

The Sower’s seed, the apple’s core
The roots of each beneath the floor
Dig deep to stretch above the blocks
Of marble columns, doors and locks
To catch the ear, the eye, the sleeve.
One seeks to give, the other deceive;
A chorus of love, another of leaves within my ruined fortress.

Again the chanting whisper rises, reaching
through the willow-curtain, teaching
me to forget the shelter of the tree
whose sloping trunk embraces me.
“Know thyself,” I hear it say,
Yet I cannot help but stay
And sing together with the willow.

A song of many and of One
A song of Father, child, and Son
Branches quiver, pitch, and sway
Like harp strings shiver as they play;
The chords progress, the images change
The notes explore a whole new range
And down the hall my tapestries
crash to the ground in perfect rhythm.