Through soundless labyrinths of dream you pass, Through many doors to the one door of all. Soon as it's opened we shall hear a music: Or see a skelet… - Conrad Aiken

How is it that I am now so softly awakened,
My leaves shaken down with music? — Darling, I love you.

It is not your mouth, for I have known mouths before, — Though your mouth is more alive than roses,
Roses singing softly
To green leaves after rain.

It is not your eyes, for I have dived often in eyes, — Though your eyes, even in the yellow glare of footlights,
Are windows into eternal dusk.

Nor is it the live white flashing of your feet,
Nor your gay hands, catching at motes in the spotlight;
Nor the abrupt thick music of your laughter,
When, against the hideous backdrop,
With all its crudities brilliantly lighted,
Suddenly you catch sight of your alarming shadow,
Whirling and contracting.

How is it, then, that I am now so keenly aware,
So sensitive to the surges of the wind, or the light,
Heaving silently under blue seas of air? — Darling, I love you, I am immersed in you…

When you are dead your spirit will find my spirit,
And then we shall die no more.

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
When the light drips through the shutters like the dew,
I arise, I face the sunrise,
And do the things my fathers learned to do.
Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops
Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,
And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet
Stand before a glass and tie my tie.