Epithalamium: Eighteenth Hour

All day, the wit of wine and laughing friends
Were joy’s company on the sun’s journey.
But as these light things have their own ends,
Allow yourselves the means of intimacy –
A whisky bottle, cigarettes, a kiss
And roads to reminisce,
The country rides and city boulevards
Where public courtship serves love’s interstice.
Again, art assaults what modesty guards…
Original touches sing a sweet refrain –
On parched hearts, a soft rain;
The simple gesture casts a cooling shadow,
The kind that’s welcomed in desert places.
Such expressions appear as oases -
Amid empty eternities, they flow
With fertile faith and overspill with mirth
Because on all the earth
No other night unlocks the stars like this.
Indeed, the world’s dark nature finds no key of grace.