Isaiah’s Coal

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what more can man desire?
Always, he woke in those days 
With a sense of treasure,
His heart a gayer glow
Than his window grand with sun, 
As a child, its mind all whirring 
With green and hollied pleasure 
Wakes in a haze of Christmas!
The season of secrets done.

Or as one on country linen
Wakes with a start one morning—
Then on comfort snugger than pillows 
Floats: July at the lake.
Or has married a golden girl
And can hardly believe, but turning 
Sees blossom for him that very face 
Worshipping cameras take.

Toy trains whirr perky on
Till springs contort beneath; 
The middle-age rower slumps 
Like a sack—indignant seizure! 
Late editions wail
Screen Star in Mystery Death—
Yet in those same days
He woke with a sense of treasure.

Knowing: my love is safe
Though the Rockies plunge like water, 
Though surf like a wildfire rage 
And omens roam the sky; 
Though limbs of the swimmer laze
Pale where the seaweed caught her, 
Nothing can touch my love 
As dangerous time goes by.

© Daniel Nester