C.C. von Wolf

When the Light Falls

When the light falls, it falls on her

In whose rose-gilded chamber

A music strained through mind

Turns everything to measure.

The light that seeks her out

Finds answering light within,

And the two join hands and dance

On either side of her skin.

The lily and the swan

Attend her whiter pride,

While the courtly laurel kneels

to kiss his mantling bride.

Under each cherry-bough

She spreads her silken cloths

At the rumor of a wind,

To gather up her deaths,

For the petals of her heart

Are shaken in a night,

Whose ceremonial art

Is dying into light.

Stanley Kunitz