Author of the Month: Michael Burch

Michael R. Burch

Michael R. Burch's poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals, taught in high schools and colleges, translated into 22 languages, incorporated into three plays and four operas, and set to music, from swamp blues to classical, 65 times by 34 composers.

The Divide

 

The sea was not salt the first tide . . .            

was man born to sorrow that first day?

The moon—a pale beacon across the Divide,

the brighter for longing, an object denied—

the tug at his heart’s pink, bourgeoning clay.

 

The sea was not salt the first tide . . .

but grew bitter, bitter—man’s torrents supplied.

The bride of their longing—forever astray,              

her shield a cold beacon across the Divide,

flashing pale signals: Decide. Decide.

Choose me, or His Brightness, I will not stay.

 

The sea was not salt the first tide . . .

imploring her, ebbing: Abide, abide.

The silver fish flash there, the manatees gray.

The moon, a pale beacon across the Divide,

has taught us to seek Love’s concealed side:

the dark face of longing, the poets say.

 

The sea was not salt the first tide . . .

the moon a pale beacon across the Divide.

***

Isolde’s Song

 

After the deaths of Tristram and Isolde, a hazel and a honeysuckle grew out of their graves until the branches intertwined and could not be parted.                  

 

Through our long years of dreaming to be one

we grew toward an enigmatic light

that gently warmed our tendrils. Was it sun?

We had no eyes to tell; we loved despite

the lack of all sensation—all but one:                                               

we felt the night’s deep chill, the air so bright

at dawn we quivered limply, overcome.

 

To touch was all we knew, and how to bask.

We knew to touch; we grew to touch; we felt

spring’s urgency, midsummer’s heat, fall’s lash,

wild winter’s ice and thaw and fervent melt.

We felt returning light and could not ask

its meaning, or if something was withheld

more glorious. To touch seemed life’s great task.

 

At last the petal of me learned: unfold.

And you were there, surrounding me. We touched.

The curious golden pollens! Ah, we touched,

and learned to cling and, finally, to hold.

***

For All That I Remembered

 

For all that I remembered, I forgot

her name, her face, the reason that we loved ...

and yet I hold her close within my thought:

I feel the burnished weight of auburn hair

that fell across her face, the apricot

clean scent of her shampoo, the way she glowed                 

so palely in the moonlight, angel-wan.

 

The memory of her gathers like a flood

and bears me to that night, that only night,

when she and I were one ... and if I could ...

I’d reach to her this time and, smiling, brush

the hair out of her eyes, and hold intact

each feature, each impression. Love is such

a threadbare sort of magic, it is gone

before we recognize it. I would crush

 

my lips to hers to hold their memory,

if not more tightly, less elusively.

***

 

To Have Loved

 

Helen, bright accompaniment,

accouterment of war as sure as all

the polished swords of princes groomed to lie

in mausoleums all eternity ...

 

The price of love is not so high

as never to have loved once in the dark

beyond foreseeing. Now, as dawn gleams pale

upon small wind-fanned waves, amid white sails ...

 

Now all that war entails becomes as small,

as though receding. Paris in your arms

was never yours, nor were you his at all.

And should gods call

 

in numberless strange voices, should you hear,

still what would be the difference? Men must die

to be remembered. Fame, the shrillest cry,

leaves all the world dismembered.

 

Hold him, lie,

tell many pleasant tales of lips and thighs;

enthrall him with your sweetness, till the pall

and ash lie cold upon him.

 

Is this all? You saw fear in his eyes, and now they dim

with fear’s remembrance. Love, the fiercest cry,

becomes gasped sighs in his once-gallant hymn

of dreamed “salvation.” Still, you do not care

 

because you have this moment, and no man

can touch you as he can ... and when he’s gone

there will be other men to look upon

your beauty, and have done.

 

Smile—woebegone, pale, haggard. Will the tales

paint this—your final portrait? Can the stars

find any strange alignments, Zodiacs,

to spell, or unspell, what held beauty lacks?

***

 

Aflutter

This rainbow is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh.—Yahweh

 

You are gentle now, and in your failing hour

how like the child you were, you seem again,

and smile as sadly as the girl

                                                   (age ten?)

who held the sparrow with the mangled wing

close to her heart.

                                 It marveled at your power

but would not mend.

                                      And so the world renews

old vows it seemed to make: false promises

spring whispers, as if nothing perishes

that does not resurrect to wilder hues

like rainbows’ eerie pacts we apprehend

but cannot fail to keep.

                                         Now in your eyes

I see the end of life that only dies

and does not care for bright, translucent lies.

Are tears so precious? These few, let us spend

together, as before, then lay to rest

these sparrows’ hearts aflutter at each breast.

***

---

Setu, June 2025