Dowry Too High

I do not know why I write these songs tonite–

the sun-shining Light beneath these lumbering tides–

but still I see, still I rhyme:

an effort to search, a meaning two-fold

in a verse half-spent, the story thrice told.

To me you reach, ever sweetly still

even after 24 spins of the earthy wheel,

even for twenty after this hour’s dearth

of a dowry too high, a promise rehearsed

in my second life,

our first rebirth.