The Ruba'Iyat of Creteil Lake - Part Fifteen

The Ruba’iyat of Créteil Lake – Part Fifteen She dreamed a dream all unfulfilled all through the dragging day Even while she tossed and grumbled half-starved and in dismay Two lives she lived as the swivelling Door swung through her faith Did Ol’ Khayyam keep her company absent during the day Through the empty branches on her shoulders the squinting sun blinked Yet tore a dazzling path across her swirling lithesome loins inked The constant lapping and lolling currents tilling her mien Where the light-foot Lass of Lahore gravely treads lights fuse linked Doleful night or dreary day the Door swings loose on hinges As the Maudite of the Lake knows not whether Khayyam cringes At his quest to seek and save her from the blindness of fate Even as the sizzling orb blurs the horizons fringes A lone lost dove hops from one Tim Burton branch to another Damp benches under white birch trees keep lover from lover Unseen seeds shoot their hopes through decaying wheezing morasses As pigeons corner head-darting mates across her feet’s lather The sluices of her invisible canal lie in limbo Each level of water rises into some alter ego Till the Door that she must cross opens on Ol’ Khayyam’s quest: Now her brimming breast heaves with the Bard’s bold super ego! © T. Wignesan – Paris, 2013