For Love Vaunteth Not Itself

For Carolina

I flew upon a bird of steel and wing,
away from home, a soldier of fortunes still unformed,
to seek a land where mortals dared not to see,
where riches gleamed and adventure's promise filled.

I left alone, from my old land,
eastward bound to shores I could not name,
and there I met not gold, but woe,
death walked among the tribes who dreamed the same
dream I once dreamed of life, of something more,
upon this turning, sorrowed earth of ours.

But there, Carolina, you stood at that skyrise,
steady as time, unmoved by fleeting hours.
And love, Oh God, that word unknown to mortal tongue,
yet known by sight, by silence, by the way
the heart hurts when some sweet song is sung
it came like a lesson meant to stay.

For love vaunteth not itself, nor doth it seek
its own; it is not provoked, nor keeps
a record of the wrongs the weary speak;
it thinketh no evil, but rejoiceth in the truth,
eternal, dancing far beyond our years
a flame that does not perish with our youth,
nor drown in sorrow's brief and mortal salty tears.

So love, it seems, was never mine to keep,
but yours to teach me, in that southern land,
where death and beauty both did intersect and awoke
my soul in mysteries I begged to understand.

Yet still I see you, unwavering, serene,
dancing to a rhythm heavenly bodies set in place,
a celestial tune no mortal eye has ever seen,
yet felt, forever, in that burning cave.

And though the years have carried me afar,
you have remained where you have gone—
steady as the moon, eternal as a shooting star,
a love that time itself could not convert.

For love, once true, though bodies drift and part,
still have danced in unbroken hearts.

A poem by,
—S.I. Guzman