Poems (Bibesco)/XXX

by Elizabeth Bibesco

XXX

Sometimes I wonder why we try to prove,
You with your silence and I with my speech,
That we have found a further faith than love.

Sometimes I wonder why we try to reach,
You with closed eyes and I with straining sight,
A deeper cavern, a more distant beach

Than those we knew before we sought a light
Too pale and stern for mortal fashioning,
Before we sought to find the infinite,

Sometimes I wonder why we do not bring
A smaller chain upon our spirits need
Than a rejection of life's blossoming.

Sometimes I wonder why we do not heed
Our hearts' disdained entanglements of song,
With banished beauty, singing through a reed

To show the loveliness where we belong;
Till in the strength of our recaptured weakness,
We burn the empty freedoms of the strong.