The Soldier’s Vesper

She came as whispers come to widowed eaves—
A flicker ’midst the prismed shafts of dusk,
Her gown the hue of willow leaves in eves,
Her breath a hymn to lilacs’ dying musk.
“O thou,” she sighed, “who treads this hallowed ground,
What phantoms bind thy soul to dust’s embrace?
Thy wounds still weep, though silence wears no sound—
Why haunt the living’s world with death’s pale trace?”

He trembled, as a bowstring taut with grief,
And raised a hand—a leaf in autumn’s gale.
“I sought a grave where love might find relief,
Yet every shovelfill drowned in her tale.
For in the trenches, where the earth did moan,
I carved her name in shrapnel’s cruel creed,
And vowed, if flesh should falter, blood, or bone,
To walk through hell’s own maw to meet her need.”

The air grew thick with centuries’ unshed tears,
As stained glass saints bent down their azure gaze.
“Thy oath,” she mourned, “outran the mortal years—
She waits no more beneath the linden’s haze.
The hearth grows cold where once her laughter spun,
Her hands, now still, once wove thy destiny.
The clock’s last chime, the final thread undone—
Thy love lies cradled where no wars hold sway.”

A tremor took the pillars, deep and low,
As if the earth itself denied her claim.
He clutched the air where her mirage did glow—
A moth ensnared in time’s relentless flame.
“If graves divide us, let me rend the clay!
If light condemns, let night’s dominion rise!
I’ll barter breath for one more stolen day—
Or trade eternity to drown her cries!”

Her form dissolved to motes of gilded pain,
Then coalesced beside a marble font.
“Poor wraith,” she wept, “thy fury rends in vain—
The veil thou storm’st is not a door, but want.
For she, thy star beyond the cannon’s smoke,
Now walks a sphere where mortal feet may pine.
To touch her is to shatter time’s thin cloak—
A choice: her peace, or chains of ‘might have been’?”

The soldier knelt, his helm a rusted crown,
And gazed where moonlight pooled like liquid years.
Somewhere, a choir’s faint echo drifted down—
A lullaby to slake the void’s cold fears.
“Then let the Fates their sharpest scissors wield,
And cut the cord that binds her soul to mine.
Let gardens bloom where once my footsteps kneeled,
And stars sing soft above her sacred shrine.”

A cry pierced through the rafters, keen and bright—
No mortal throat, but stone itself undone.
The rose window bled cascades of light,
And there, between the living and the sun,
A figure stood—a woman clad in dawn,
Her eyes two springs where sorrow’s storms had slept.
One step she took, and every shadow drawn
Into the ache of centuries forth leapt.

“Beloved fool,” her voice a brook in thaw,
“Why court the void to mend a shattered vow?
I lingered not where poppies guard the law,
But wove my shroud from every bough
That bent to shield thy name from winter’s spite.
Yet here, where memory’s roots crack marble floors,
I’ll plant my kiss—one seed against the night—
Then walk beyond where all lost loves restore.”

He reached—his fingers brushed her gossamer sleeve,
And worlds collided in that fleeting touch.
Her smile, a key to locks none could perceive,
Unbound the chains his anguish clutched so much.
“Go forth,” she breathed, “where no dawn breaks anew,
Nor war’s black wings eclipse the lark’s refrain.
My ghost shall keep these arches’ steadfast view,
Till time dissolves, and we are twined again.”

The soldier’s frame, once rigid as a spear,
Dissolved to ash beneath the vault’s embrace.
The font ran clear with tears no eye could sear,
While high above, in some uncharted space,
A single note—a lute string’s sweet demise—
Suffused the stones with unrelenting hue.
And where he vanished, two doves took to skies,
Their wings the shade of promises kept true.

Now travelers claim, when midnight’s cloak is cast,
A woman’s sigh still haunts the transept’s gloom,
And shadows near the altar hold the past—
A helm, a tress, a love sealed in a tomb.
But fools who seek the heart of this lament
Find only this, carved where the north wind grieves:
*The greatest wounds are those no blood has rent—
The wars we wage to lose what love retrieves.*