I Never Asked

It has occurred to me my love I never asked if you would sit for me I was so taken by you and swept away I never asked if it would be okay And this volume that I have drawn out The binding wears and pages frail Now tear between my touch Diaphanous and whisper light I clutch and turn with fever'd hand And pray that I may grace you In a way that you will somehow understand I try my best with solemn care To capture all I see of you, so fraught, so fair Are my words worthy of your ways I ask this of myself, lo, these fanatic days And this language making use of me As yet may be unknown to human sound And dwelling in the space between With all unspoken and unseen Unquantifiable, profound, not in, not of Up, down, nor lost nor found And oh, as I soften on the vine Darkly sweet I'm held to linger Where the beauty of the season Turns from gold to bitter grey And oh, what aching colors you have spun Around me where the grinding hum of sameness Held me just above Where I kept my heart at bay Where I kept my heart at bay Until, against my will It chose to languish here upon your face I kept this dove cupped in my palm I spit blood upon the pearl the grey the white Thrown back into the yawning flame To flash and mold a crucible of my device And what figure comes forth from the molten pit A form hath shone by mine own hand, my eye Captured on a linen sprung And taut and stretched and ready rip't With gentle strokes and longing writ And wrought with fits and fainting And YOU, sweet phantom of my making And oh, as I soften on the vine Darkly sweet I'm held to linger Where the beauty of the season Turns from gold to bitter grey And oh, what aching colors you have spun Around me where the grinding hum of sameness Held me just above Where I kept my heart at bay Where I kept my heart at bay Until, against my will It chose to languish here upon your face It has occurred to me my love I never asked if you would sit for me I was so taken by you and swept away I never asked if it would be okay I never asked if it would be okay