Embrace

Embrace

Poems by Paul Engle:

Night Scene

I leave your house, turn back   
Away from night’s blind black   
Toward that pale window where   
I see your loved face stare:   
Dear dazzle whose live white   
In that ecstatic night   
Shames the electric light.   

You do not know I see   
Your eyes that look for me.   
You find night empty, stand   
And wave your empty hand:   
Then, like a child, but slow   
As if in fear, you blow   
A kiss to the dark and go. 
 
I do not know why such   
Brief act without warm touch   
Should stop a man stone still
And shake him like a chill   
On one warm summer night:   
A woman’s gesture, slight   
And quick as sudden light.   

So in that empty air   
I fill with rage that there   
I left the wonder of   
Your silhouetted love:   
Bewilderment of eye   
More passionate than cry   
Where touching lovers lie.



The Wearing Rough

This is not time, this always   
Moving of immortal light   
On mountain, field and dark   
Narrow of night.   
Nor is the plunge of earth   
Time, its forever fall   
Downward in silence, no   
Cry or bird call.   

Time is the wearing rough   
Of the smooth brow, the gray   
Gathered in ruddy cheek   
By day on day.   
Even a simpler thing:   
The interval of space   
Traveled by my bare hand   
Finding your face