Tropical Seas

Lying here cradled in the arms of my love,
I find myself dreaming of that isle of grace,
Where first I knew that fates, or gods above
Had done something I might approve of:
That isle where I first saw my lover's face.

He shifts and stirs beside me; I lift a hand,
And smooth it down the curls of dark hair
That is almost the blue of water or land
(When seen from a distance, the golden sand
Turns the blue of mist) that I found there.

The tropical island in the midst of warm seas,
So bright with blue, and with gold and green,
That it seemed impossible that night should seize
Their heart-rending shade away from the trees,
And ever bear them down into darkness unseen.

Yet that is not quite true; there is the sea-light,
The eerie glowing green that sings on the shore,
Born of crashing phosphor against the sea-night,
And swirled about in dances to make the heart tight;
I almost cried when I thought I would never see more.

But that green is not dead, and for me it never dies.
The day after I saw that green amongst the swells,
I looked up, and saw that green in my beloved's eyes.
He paused, and stared at me with deer-sweet surprise,
There among the sands where he stooped for star-shells.

We gazed at each other, in that air heavy and warm,
There beside the murmur of the matchmaking water,
And while out at sea the air muttered of a bolt-storm,
There I felt love take to itself destiny's own form,
And I bowed my head, humbled to be fate's daughter.

I look at him now, head tossed, face creased in sleep,
And I feel something in me as warm as the seas,
As warm as the light in the night of the deep,
As warm as the light that my heart must now keep
To ever again sing with either ecstasy or ease.

But I do not really mind that need; I do not care.
I roll over, and that motion, with its languid ease,
Lets me bury my face in the sea-dark of his hair,
Where I drift as if borne on billows deep and fair,
And lured away to dreams of warm tropical seas.