Poems By Arjava

HOW came your green translucency

to palimpsest my page,

shadow of dim-wayed alchemy

backthrown from after-age ?

No this-world-print enwalls my cage,

but script of gramarye

up glimmers past your filmy wings

and dips my hodden thought

in some faint moon washed tide that brings

colours undreamt, unsought !

If all your kind are fosterlings

a phantom gale up caught

from dragoned meadows of the moon,

your flutter-fans of jade

belong where palaces are hewn

from porcelain, choicely made,

whose silver carp in trance have swayed

through chasms emerald-strewn

divergelessly.... and midnight's rim

of green-veined marble stairs

ascend to where the fireflies limn

a flicker of green tears

before a golden-pillared seat,

dragon-chased with green,

that bears— in silver cage of light—

the hierarch parakeet,

whose sustenance has ever been

the rainbow of the night

where topaz wines with sapphire meet

within the chrysoprase

moon-brimmed bowl of haze

borne by green-silked serving maids

from dim green-vista'd lunar glades.