The Glitter of the Heart with Snows of Yesteryear Inside It

in Sir Galahad

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

Les neiges d’antan

The distant seems more lovely if we see

It like the nearest things we love but cleansed,

Clean, polished by a Christ who’s crystal sea

Is far above what telescopes have lensed,

What James Webb never could deep focus on.

The rain we see today, though God’s-eye-clear

Is even purer than that Eden dawn

Before the prime sin made love disappear

Behind myth’s prophet runes and makes us grope

In dreams.  A distance filled with rainless skies

Makes raindrops as pellucid as brides’ hope,

While depths of thrill in wedding beds arise.

  The snows of yesteryear are whiter white

    Than ancient snows inside a sinless knight.

© Phillip Whidden