He Wrote To Her A Letter That She Might Know Poem by Linda Marie Van Tassell

While fixing my thoughts on February
and snow-feathered boughs of evergreen chain,
I follow the moonlight’s tributary
across a clouded sky that portends rain.
The town is sleeping in the palm of night,
in winter’s malaise and layers of snow,
whose basket is brimming with fluffs of white
where dark shadows fall and fire flickers glow.

Dreams are echoed in the valley of sleep,
twilight tangled in a glittering swirl;
and soaked in memory, the passions keep
as the nacre of the moon or a pearl.
I listen in silence and sip the sound
softly flaking off the lips of the sky
that fall in a hush upon sacred ground
of yesteryears and the times now gone by.

The past glides over the whispering stones,
in the moonlight pulse of a woman’s wrist,
whose passion bleeds into the ghost of bones
that arise in a white sarong of mist.
Others see her and think nothing of it
as she drifts up and down the Roper aisle.
The wind murmurs, “Margaret, Margaret; ”
and there are tears imbedded in her smile.

She has waited all these long, lonely years
with her eyes toward Saint Peter in chains.
Her father’s last words in a backwash of tears,
his mortal assembly yet there remains.
She lovingly strokes the top of his head.
His sweet face she kissed that day in July!
His charcoal letter, she read and re-read
and read it once more before she did die.

London Bridge crumbles into River Thames,
into the blue mood of reflective steel.
The crown is tarnished and bereaved of gems
with each head that sharpens against the wheel.
Poor Thomas can no longer touch his brow.
He cannot lay his head down for a nap.
As snow cloaks Canterbury and each bough,
his head lays smiling in Margaret’s lap.