"VERTICAL CLOUDS"
a verse by Avi Abrams
The castle grows out of the mountain rock
Does it have roots there
or does it belong to the clouds?
The towers answer with a
sparkling gleam of a setting sun
reflected on stained-glass windows.
Is there a face there?
or is it just a smile, born of
a delicate thrust of archways and turrets
toward the melancholy sky.
No castle is ever alone among the scenery.
Whenever it plays host to
inquisitive clouds, or
acts as a candlestick to the moon
-- your heart grows stronger
in an amber drop of Permanence
caught between the rock and the sky.
Is it a gate?
or is it a ghost of Heaven
trickling down
into the meadows below?
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