STRAYPOETRY.COM | Ezra’s Daily Ramblings

The sounds of the forest.
Flowers in bloom,
Thrush in the willow,
Mid deepening gloom.

A twitter on the air,
The cool of the breezes.
So soft, so fragrant and rare.
Deepening twilight mid the trees.

Hawk in soaring flight,
The air his majestic throne.
Bounding deer, startled in fright.
Darkened trails, I walk alone.

Sunlight’s feathery beam.
Dancing shadows play,
Like an enchanted dream.
Mysteries unfolded, lying in my way.

Yellow eyes, in the darkness,
Howl from afar, soft and long.
Wolf council sits in stillness,
Then join in glorious song.

Peace found in the forest,
Wonder in the swirling stream.
Soft meadow, calling me to rest,
It’s beauty following me even as I dream.

-Ezra Hilyer

Where are you now my once love? Why have you run into darkness and ever present rain? I saw you once when you were young and joyous, I remember well how happy you were; not a care in the world.
I hurt you, I broke your spirit, and took your joy, I watched you walk away in a quiet storm of tears.
Can you love me still?
Will you ever forgive the sadness I have given you for life? Will you ever return? If I asked you to come back to me; would you heed my behest?
When we were young, I didn’t care about you; I loved only myself. I never thought that I would fall for you, but now in the twilight of my life, I see that you were the only one that ever loved me. You cared for me like I was something more than the penniless clerk that I was.
I lived on my meager salary and was proud of the fact that I had made my own life apart from everyone I knew, I was a fool, I was a fool, I was a fool.
Now, I am no fool, and I know no folly. Now I see that you were the only light in my world of darkness.

You were the sun in the sky, but all I ever saw were the stars. I never could see that it was you who made everything light.
Love, what is that?
Come to me my once love; forget about the things I did wrong, forgive me for my foolishness, and regret. Give me one last chance, I won’t give you a reason to regret.
Is there a chance yet? Is there a faint flicker of future brewing between now and then?

-Ezra Hilyer

Her eyes are open as she lies,
Frozen in beauty, cold as stone.
Never more to laugh, no more sighs.
All I have yet are memories, of thoughts alone.

Her cheeks are pale as alabaster or pearl.
Lost is the faint brush of rose.
She is framed in soft curls,
Brown as the earth, as if in a pose.

But I know she will never start;
Gone are her sunlit smiles.
Together in life, but death will do us part.

-Ezra Hilyer-

There is a light in your eyes; I can not explain its source.

Perhaps you can; has there ever been a moment that held you in sway? When you scarce could bear to move lest you break the sweet spell of silence. What ever it was that triggered that spark of thought/feeling I do not know for it will be different to each soul, but it must be there.
Have you ever stopped in sorrow for a sight that passed something that triggered one small buried memory perhaps? Has ever your heart jumped a beat for one second of pure joy? Sometimes upon waking from a sweet dream of peace I ponder what the future may hold.
Can the hope and joy of being content and whole that seems so close within a sleeping dream come into reality? And could the whole of your existence be worth that short sweet moment?

-Ezra Hilyer

-Ezra Hilyer-

Empty nights alone, I wander the glistening streets of light,
Searching for my youth in the faces of the girls of the night.

Though I never see her green eyes, perhaps I catch a flash of emerald
In the eyes of the next.

Or perhaps, I just await my own death with the eagerness
Of one whose soul has already perished long ago.

I am only a corpse wandering the streets alone;
Swimming in the hazy, dim pools of yellow light,
Cast by the unliving trees of glass, iron, and stone.

She waits for me.

-Ezra Hilyer

Eternity;
Did you hear my words to you?

Have you watched the sunset I made to bring you closer?

I waited all night under the bridge on 2nd street; but like the long shadows under noontime sun; you never came.
To a place we once called home, to a land of no birth go I. To the bridge between lands, under the lonely moon.
To a hope I never shared; to a love I never knew, I sing this wordless song.

There are no more days to project on my curtain of lost lives.
You gave your dreams to me most regretfully; you hold back the things that mattered most.

Doves only live once.

-Ezra Hilyer-

What I had; no longer, what a child was I…
In foolish anger, in pit, and in pain, I watched our hopes die…
Witnessed them curl, and writhe in the flames while I danced with throbbing madness: insane!
In silence she stood; her eyes a sparkle with inner pain.

Then in terror she fled; to be free from the horrid sight,
And when the fires had faded and I was whole again.
I looked for the morning…
Never more her face to grace; nor her warm eyes to laugh in the sun.

And now I lie here caught forever awaiting my chance; how I wish to run.
Oh, never again; the memories burn hot down my cheek; and my heart sighs with longing.

Slowly my mind turns again to anther scene of a twilight dream.
Together on the banks of a stream, of the love we shared, of a promise told.
To never forget, nor ever to regret, and forever hold;
Oh to spin back the globe of time, and to live yet again…

It is a time again, my point; a spot in time.
Again comes the glitter, and the cup of wine.
A trembling hand as I reach; the chance again lost.
Sand sifting through my hands, oh, what had it cost?
In patient resolve, forever I await the sparkle of the sun.

Enthralled again in lonely thought, in silence I ponder,
And down the lonely halls of memory, I slowly wander.
Looking for that little book of thought, a careworn volume,
The small red cover adorned with a feathered plume.
Once found and now lost, what a fool was I?

But the future what it holds? What a grey expanse of silence..
Speak to me through the ages, lead me in this trance,
Come to me, touch my face, kiss these tears away
Put your hand in mine; hold me as I sob, and pray.

Watch that glitter; catch it as it drifts by.

-Ezra Hilyer-

(Thanks to Bev for copying this poem down back in 1997 when I wrote it. If it were not for her, it would have been lost to the quicksand of time.)

Here we give away our caresses like so many beads, or perhaps as trees give away their leaves in the fall.

Some things should be held in greater regard than these: to be kept in quiet boxes like leaves gathered in the fall.

When we were only children.

-Ezra Hilyer-

Azure sea;

     Never forgotten amid becalmed storms.

Once we were driftwood,

    Spread apart by sand, sun-bleached, but never faded.

Tortured on sunny shores,

     Blazoned with wreaths of seaweed. Gifted with the sun.

In sorrows silence, In pains embrace,
Lift up your head; raise your eyes to mine.
My love cast far from me, this dessolate place.
Lift me up, lift me up, free my bondage in time.
When the sorrow of life, that crushing darkness, holds you fast-
Look no more to the past.

Glow the future, ruby promise of life.
And the smile in your eyes, a glitter of light,
Shines with joy, under velvet sky, and glittering stars,
Let me hold, let me love, oh, to keep this wondorous sight,
But the night it fades, The cool winds whisper and then slowly die.
That sweet thought, and rememberance slowly fade, I know not why…

On my knees in this hallowed place, alone I seek,
For what I do not know, Stain my tears the slatted floors,
And the pain of these years flow softly down my cheek.
Shut, oh shut tight the gate of memory, and these oaken doors.
A smile once, a kiss then, slip through the chinks and cracks.
Then down comes the wall I had built.

A rush of time, freed tatters of a once love,
With trembling hands, I open the silver cage and free the past,
And there in my palm, lies a lone white dove,
Expiring of life, slowly it draws a breath, its last,
What I had shut away, what was once locked and forgotten,
Now again I must remember.

In white glossamer threads, In soft downly silence,
The snow covered the ground, and clung to the houses.
And the ever marching rows of slatted fence,
Echo the past, from hither and hence.
And the laughter and tears, mellow through the years..

Shatter the stillness, In shards of thought.
And gather the joy, The joy of life,
For soon, if you tarry, and tarry you ought,
That glitter it fades, In shables of strife.
For what have you gained?
For what have you sought?

Smile my child, laugh away the pain.
Hope for the morn, and give my love
to the darkness and midnight rain.

Be it not forever thus,
The sun now soon peeks .
As the threads of Time unravel a new day

Only this thought remains,
Of the hope I held that day, Long, long ago.
In the eternity to come, I would that I could,
Bear the burden I have given to you.

-Ezra Hilyer