Poem: "domed/doomed/deem'd

domed/doomed/deem'd

This reading light on the poems of Lady Mary Wroth
is like my spot of consciousness. It decodes the marks,
grievous and oddly spelled, as in domed for doomed,
straightens out the urgent inversions, reconstructs
the labyrinth of sense into a familiar sonnet form,
and bathes (and I mean bathes) in the aura borealis.

Just beyond is darkness. Unseen, in the next room,
you finalize your drawings of the church renovation.
You said before, you love knowing that I am near,
hearing the couch sighing, or smelling my coffee,
whereas, submerged in my books, I am oblivious
to your existence, and so you feel outside of love.

Dear, you may be outside the circle of my thought,
but not the influence of love. As Lady Mary Wroth
writes, The knowing part of joye is deem'd the hart.
Know, if you must, a greater part lies in unknowing.
I am more than the heart, more than a reading light,
this coffee, this sighing, this darkness, is love too.

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