by Michael Kiesow Moore
I want to build a song sturdy as a castle
with rooms—it must have rooms!
A room that can hold Lorca’s full moon rising,
a room for Whitman’s calamus leaves, fecund and green,
a room vast enough to hold the rage of Achilles
and another to hold the fall of Troy –
and we can give Wilfred Owen that room for it will
be large enough to hold, too, the pity of war.
Once we fill all these rooms, can we finally
find room enough for love?
First we must find the lost key
dropped so many times it is a wonder it
has any form at all, or held so fast by
some it can only be removed by the
white nimble fingers of Death.
Let us then make prodigious rooms for love
and hand out the keys prolifically
to all who deserve one and more so
to the ones who do not – for is this not
a love song, like all the songs?
And when we finish building this great
edifice it will beat in the deep heart
of this cold cold world and the song will
suffuse every living being
and you will be held
all manner of living beings will be held
and no one will ever be alone again.
Published in The Song Castle (Nodin Press), 2019