aspodel

What power has love but forgiveness?
In other words
by its intervention
what has been done
can be undone.
What good is it otherwise?
Because of this
I have invoked the flower
in that
frail as it is
after winer's harshness
it comes again
to delect us.
Asphodel, the ancient believed,
in hell's despite
was such a flower
...
You have forgiven me
making me new again
so that here
in the place
dedicated in the imagination
to memory
of the dead
I bring you a last flower.

Then follows
what we have dreaded-
but it can never
overcome what has gone before.
In the huge gap
between the flash and the thunderstroke
spring has come in
or a deep snow fallen.
...
This is that interval,
that sweetest interval,
when love will blossom
...
Light, the imagination
and love,
in our age,
by natural law,
which we worship,
maitain all of a piece
their dominance.
So let us love
confident as is the light
in its struggle with darkness
...
Asphodel
has no odor
save to the imagination
but it too
celebrates the light