The Keep

 

 

He sits at his place by the hearth

And he absorbs all that he sees.

Like a sentinel at the tower’s kype

A nonagenarian with pallid swarth

Major Arch Ives keeper of books

And knower of the wars known by a number.

He reads chronicles of movements and battles

As time keeps still - while he looks.

 

The Major holds court at his familiar coffee-shop nook.

The chair and table could never be in rime

Without passersby submitting their waivers

That Major Ives knows life; he is no rook.

He tells of hailing from a city of Grove

And then traveling to a Grove of sugar.

With new bride and Lassie pups to raise

He reminisces, “Life’s dreams were our trove.”

 

The days were golden with nectar ever so sweet.

The sun light was right, and it all made sense.

When came Tia - then another; and another

And his bride could move no longer; stillness was replete.

Ten years went by and so went life’s circles

From a Grove to a small place near a Square

Where the Major could be near her care

And his stillness keeps: “Only memories without miracles”.

 

The Major sits alone pursuing his books of history

Says he regrets leaving City of Grove,

“Perhaps she would not have been stricken.

 - If only; if only …

MacArthur had stayed at the Bataan Peninsula”.

Now The Keep is full misery.

Major Arch Ives awaits the last chapter’s write

And prays and believes that those small strokes

Will give him the power to keep death at bay.

He muses, “Now, I keep wait for a major to take the Major”.

Seems only right.

 

What we keep - cannot; will not be held.

What we see, as age changes visions,

Are the stones and the jewels that we once strewn

About with open hands and foolish hearts not in weld.

The impermanence of a candle’s light

Keeps the encompassing dark away;

Keeps a heightened breath quiet;

 

And in The Keep – flickers an ever-dimming sight.