Whispers Upon the Dim-lit Rue

Her steps were soft—like sighs beneath the boughs,

Where shadows sweetly danced with fading light;

Her visage veiled, an ever-shifting house

Of joy and grief, in close and tranquil fight.

A rue obscure where time was scarcely sped,

Its cobbles told of journeys and of hopes,

And lanterns wept their tears in amber thread,

As dusk uncurled her velveteen envelopes.

She paused—a fleeting figure wrapped in thought—

The silence held her near, a whispered friend.

“What art thou, heart, that dwells in realms half-wrought?

Where laughter chimes and shadows do descend?”

A voice within, the tender echo stirred,

A murmuring caught between the dusk and dawn:

“I am the mirror cracked, the broken word,

The breath that sings of all that’s lost and drawn.”

Her eyes reflected twin ambrosial streams—

One bathed in sunlight’s warmth, one veiled in rain,

They held the weight of hopes and shattered dreams,

A silent requiem of joy and pain.

This rue, a vessel for such hearts as hers,

Did cradle every soul’s elusive race,

Where day and night entwined in whispered blurs,

And time, a phantom waltzing with embrace.

Beneath each lamp—a halo faintly burned,

Its amber glow like molten honey’s gleam,

She traced the lines where past and present turned,

Where waking fades into the realm of dream.

“Is life then but a passage torn in twain,

A tender rift where whole becomes no more?

Do joy and grief enroll their endless reign,

As waves that kiss yet scar the lonely shore?”

Her whispered thoughts arose, a silver stream,

Flowing through labyrinths of self and time,

Like strings that pierce the quiet heart’s deep seam,

A voice that finds in sorrow songs sublime.

Around her, phantoms of the rue did sigh—

Old faces etched in vapor, dreams undone—

Each tale a thread in twilight’s tapestry,

An allegory spun in half-lit runes.

One figure stepped with grace, a man of years,

His eyes the pools where wisdom’s shadows played,

He spoke without a word, yet spoke so clear,

A question trailing softly through the glade:

“What seeks thy heart within this dusky lane,

Where light and dark convene in fragile dance?

Is it to heal the ever-bleeding vein,

Or to embrace the ache of circumstance?”

She answered not but felt the pulse arise,

A flutter caught between despair and grace,

Within her breast—a storm of sighs and skies,

A twining vine that seeks its border space.

Between the lamps, the shadows stretched and sang,

Their melodies composed of loss and fire,

A symphony of everything that clangs

Within the human soul’s uncertain choir.

“What art thou, then, O heart of shifting hue?

A vessel cracked, yet brimming with its song?

The dawn’s sweet ache, the dusk’s embracing blue,

Where all that’s right and all that’s wrong belong.”

Her breath was caught; a moment held in steel,

Her footing poised upon the threshold’s line,

Between the riddle in her spinning wheel,

And all the stars that through the mist did shine.

Within her veins the alchemy of night—

A dance of shadow woven into gold,

The restless twin-flame flickering its light,

A paradox that ages yet grows bold.

She turned her face toward the fading glimpse,

Where rue dissolved beneath the mist’s embrace,

And felt the throb of countless whispered shrimps,

The fragile flicker of the human race.

“Perhaps,” she mused, “to be is to exist

Within this balance of the dark and bright,

To hold in trembling hand the fleeting mist,

The twilight’s breath, the softly waning light.”

And as the lamps exhaled their final gleam,

The rue lay hushed beneath the slumbered sky,

Where every soul must harbour its own dream,

And every question folds the soft reply.

So linger there, O traveller of rue,

Embrace the hours where joy and sorrow meet,

For in the trembling heart’s divided hue,

The drama of the whole is bittersweet.

No ending waits—only the ceaseless thread,

A narrative spun with resplendent care,

Where all that’s named and all that’s left unsaid

Convene beneath the lamp’s declining flare.

And thus she walks, her soul a whispered flame,

An echo poised between the dusk and dawn,

A soul ambiguous, none may wholly name,

Forever bound to rue—the rue and song.