Comfort

I can barely breathe this thin air,
can scarcely see:
     This light blinds me and I long to feel
Your cool shadow.

I have so long been chafed
by chains of rock:
     I have screamed in tongues of forgotten gods
And remained mute.

There is no speech for breathing,
nor eyes for sight:
      For all the wiles of art no other can feel
The inside of my skin.

Yet still the beating of those human hearts
gives rhythym to me:
     The fire I brought burns brightly still
In all my alien kin.

In all my long and many lives,
this I have learned:
     Love is as fragile and fleeting as a snowflake
And as irreplaceable.

I pay an unintended price
for my great sin:
    It is not the pain of the rock or the blood
But being alone.

So I pledge a marriage to you
with each return:
    As long as I live I have all my heart's blood
To give freely.

My center renews in every birth
of this old sun:
     And thus can I smile as you bring my pain,
My beautiful eagle.

-- BT Murtagh

 (For Alan Turing, whose 100th birthday is today.

  RIP, Mr. Turing, you deserved much better.)