Marionettes

Twisting round her ankles like a dervish madly whirling
Spun her skirt, the cloth as golden as her hair so softly curling
Like the freshest skeins of silk, close about her shoulders swirling,
Keeping fast, frenetic time with her dancing and her twirling

He had seen her from a distance through the dullish, dankish crowd,
And he heard (though those about him laughed and talked obscenely loud)
That the music light to which she danced, her head held high and proud,
Was as bright and pure and coldly sweet as stars glimpsed through a cloud

And twice as far as those fair stars she seemed, at least to him,
Away from his unworthiness, a precious, priceless gem
That never he could hope to gain or nearer still to swim
Through life’s unbroken chains and bonds and vast, perplexing dim

Yet in her wild abandon flashed a sight of string-like ties
That made him clench his hands in vain and utter saddened sighs
For melting fast before the gleam of his discerning eyes,
The freedom of the girl’s façade became a shroud of lies

Lies of skill, if truth be told, made by the puppeteer
That high above the lovely doll her movements light did steer
The dips and swells that had, till then, appeared so free and dear
And made him wish with trembling heart he had not sight so clear

For was she, though of cold wood made, or was she truly not
Within the same vast web of life held fast and cruelly caught
As he himself had been so long and just as long had fought
To find—at last!—that in this world was one for whom he sought?

And then to see and understand that she was nothing more
Than any block of oak of elm he’d ever seen before—
But why then at the sight of her did his racked soul run sore
With pain that pierced down within his deepest, darkest core?

And now he stands with aching thoughts that in his head are swirling,
While she, the captive butterfly, continues madly twirling,
And he wonders if she ever will grow tired and cease her curling
For the swaying of her dancing and her fast, frenetic whirling
Is enough to drive his frenzied mind into a bout of swirling
The like of which he’ll not escape if she’ll not stop her twirling
For his fate with hers is wound as tight as two watch-springs close curling
And like the watch, perhaps in time, if she might please stop whirling
His span of pain might find an end and (finally) start…unfurling…