COUNTING
Liesbeth List (The Netherlands)


Now is the glimmering, spinning, beginning,
of something I’ve prayed for
and counted the minutes,
to be in the shadow of sheltering meadows of night,
with you in my arms.

This is the moment that poses to hold us,
as you and I move, in a background of wonder, 
surrounded by countesses and closures of nocturne
and spoken music of joy.

Counting times, I have stood at the foot
of your ivory tower and weeped
and called out your name by the hour
and counted on wings of my heart-strings,
to carry this sound.
I have counted on pleading,
you’d see how I need you, come down.

And now between twilight and midnight
you came to me,
down in your gown of soft moonbeams and starlight. 
Bright as the evening that breezes has fenced us
and mastered against us :
you’re here.

And warm and mine,
till the time when the dawn will awake me,
the morning will shake me,
the highway will take me.

But now will the rains of the moon make me gaze.
We will swim in the lustre of lingering streetlights
and count on the night to hold everything even
and count on forgetting that I will be leaving,
when heaven has folded and then in the dawn,
I’ll be gone.

But now as the gardens of softening night-time
are blossoming slowly around where we are,
you and I came together
and walked through the dreams of the stars.

So, here where the sun of the deepening evening
is singing to me from the light in your eyes,
we can count on eachother
to move to the beach of tomorrow
and know where we’ve been.