in the white dress i remember
an epistle to she whom fate let me see, but not hold
My Dearest—
Though I dare not inscribe thy name,
and this letter, like so many feelings, shall remain forever unseen,
still must I cast into words
that which the soul can no longer bear to
cradle in silence.
I was fixed in quiet at my desk,
engaged in the solemn charge of contemplation—
that frail cathedral wrought of linguistics and logic.
My mind, that youthful sentinel, stood alert in its task.
Yet a tremor, faint but fateful, passed through the air
and summoned my gaze to turn.
There thou stood.
Not arriving—nor departing—
but Being in the fullest, fairest sense.
As though Demeter herself had tarried a while,
gathered all that was tender and untouched,
and whispered it into form:
thyself, draped in white and wedded to the earth.
Brown boots pressed to the concrete
as though thou didst belong more to soil and sky
than to this fleeting mortal spectacle.
In thy hand—a book.
Of course.
Ah, how thou hast unraveled my order.
I had pledged myself to undivided purpose,
to ascend through reason,
to walk the narrow path of scholarship unencumbered.
Yet thy presence—
as transient as mist, and no less divine—
hath loosed me from my musings.
How merciless are the gods,
to shape so exquisite a vision
and place it ever just beyond my reach.
I long to speak with thee—
yet I know too well the lines I am meant to follow.
This Moira is not mine to claim—
not in this life.
Thou art no dream,
no celestial spectre conjured of idle thought,
but a woman—
boots and book in hand—
who stood but ten steps from me,
while I drowned in the silent recognition
that I should never know thee.
In thine eyes, I beheld a grace unspoiled by pretense,
a humility untouched by vanity.
We spoke little—
and yet,
it seems to me I have loved thee
across a thousand silences.
It rends me to ponder
that we may never again share a moment
beneath the indifferent canopy of the sky.
Yet I cannot curse the anguish—
for even this sorrow is sanctified.
Perhaps, in some gentler realm,
where duty no longer strangles desire,
we might have wandered the same path,
not merely passed one another upon it.
But here I remain—
smiling through tears
at the exquisite farce that is Fate,
and the sweet, slow tragedy of existence.
And so shall this letter rest where it must—
unsent,
yet eternal.
With a heart nigh replete,
and a name I utter only in dreams,
I remain
thine in thought,
forever unmet.