Balance and Bread

balance and bread by michael b titman

belonging to you this bead
braided in your silken hair
don’t shy away the moon
or its gilded care

i once found it there
that latent, pear-drop bead
in a pale light, so resplendent
in amongst the weeds

i’m not sure where friendship or love lie
or where they may cross
but they became the pale moonlight
a knight to the bead emboss

the weeds despoiled the land
covering a playground of child
where do the keepers lay
to keep out all the wild

maybe the daybreak beckons
and dewfall feeds the flower
on this trail of love
un-traveled at this hour

it is what we thought
ill t’wards the weeds its kin
a reapers scythe swept down
to empty our souls within

what rings within the air
but a voice so lonely, ‘tis neigh
the keeper awakens, unaware
of the weeds, their doomsday cry

but daylight! oh wedded vow
broken unto us this bread
a halting of this chorus
shedding light before the dead

bonds do not break the rye
holding the weeds, its use unfurled
and its distrust banished
and nourishment known throughout the world

and not a care to the children’s play
of the broken land in the fall
for when this green-life day breaks
t’would lift all self-seeded walls

and life creates this promise
for within your silkened hair
a balance within the bead
and the bread that i would share