My Once and Former King

O once and former king of all me thee surveyed, I submitted, with my small embodied self, to your regency over me: I kept your ring, instead of another offered me, O once, and former king. The day has come when I stand here, alone on a high tower, and, below me, staunch and sorrowful you stand, your blue eyes empty as the gray and windy skies, your heart, too, as cold as the blue blood it pushes through. You thrust me away, for I prayed to a God not yours: But spurned, I opened my long-unfolded wings, And soared up --- when about to strike the stones! --- For I remembered how once I was well-beloved By another man --and, lest you would ever know, I was silent—for he died, and I alone had to survive the winter storms of snow. I regret that you will know before you die, my rigid king, sequestered up within your own small, nested world, that secret part of me, that ever did yearn to fly, when I gleamed there, a vision in your eye— ah! You never knew-- the eagle whom you cast down --that before she’d strike the stones and die--- she would fly. JVB ==to my former husband==1997 LA, USA