Melancholia: A Choice

Traveler at a Window (1947)

An arm, like a shivering branch outstretched,
Reached for the latch but the distance was for no broken traveller.
A longing for the gentle breeze to caress his skin
And swell his nose with Spring's scent,
He sought Margaret and her affectionate aid,
And the sweet love delivered by resilience.
'O Margaret!' said he, but silence answered,
For absent was she and a labourer of three.

Reaching once more, with a quaking hand,
So sore and near to capture that sweet air,
Nearer to breathing in the grey of the morning mist
Breathless and watchful on the treetops.
Heave!– and perch on the border of danger,
Of the chair which houses all broken men,
And looked upon his severed legs;
And lo! They materialise!

Fingers suffocated the leather rests,
With arms trembling like weak scaffolding,
And colonies of sweat gathered above his lips,
That released the Minotaur's desperate howl.
Desire to become a lone traveller once more,
And a burning passion to discover, unaided,
Blundering, down, the ground greeted him!
A moribund man, on a minefield, it made of him.

Of sight surrounded and clouded by the dust,
He peered over his body, a flaming pyre,
For below the knees rolled a wave of numbness
And embedded in the ears, a black siren.
Beholding the shredded and severed stumps,
A silent scream ripped through his lungs,
And the dread grew and escalated,
A shriek of ages that summoned a circle of comrades.

Fingers like hooks, digging into an ally's fist,
And squinting at the visage, shifting into pristine pallidity,
From a face darkened with dust, and of steadily whitening hair,
This angel had subdued his fleeting curse.
'Father, pray, this war is done!'
Gentle hands seized the palsied, grey man,
'Two Winters have died; this home newly built',
He calmed, and met her in leaden-eyed despair.

She hauled him back into his prison,
In a breeze, she unlocked the barricading pane,
And the shutters flung wildly open, liberating.
So filled her bosom was, with the primal naivety,
And with a darkened eye, a storm brewing,
Unknowing of the Death of man,
Too sour to recall, she plodded away,
Enraged–a bleeding and heavy heart.

The light air enveloped his body, and kissed his skin;
But no longer was this gentle wind as sweet,
For the traveller's search for the lost,
Had torn the wings of the Saint of Humility.
And Margaret often wept for him and her child,
And imagined she veiled the pains of her charity.

Now near the pane, I lock the latch to clasp this love,
For Two Winters ago, the traveller did pass, in the trenches of Gallipoli.