https://youtu.be/WkCMiphStL8

Enjoy this reading of the poem Kitiara, of All the Days by Michael Williams. This poem first appeared in Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home, released in 1987. Buy Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home: https://amzn.to/39TClwb

Kitiara, of All the Days

Kitiara, of all the days these daysare rocked in dark and waiting, in regret.The clouds obscure the city as I write this,delaying thought and sunlight, as the streetshang between day and darkness. I have waitedpast all decision, past the heart in shadowsto tell you this. In absences you grewmore beautiful, more poisonous, you werean attar of orchids in the swimming night,where passion, like a shark drawn down a bloodstream,murders four senses, only taste preserving,buckling into itself, finding the blood its own,a small wound first, but as the shark unravelsthe belly tatters in the long throat's tunnel.And knowing this, the night still seems a richness,a gauntlet of desires ending in peace,I would still be part of these allurements,and to my arms I would take in the darkness,blessed and renamed by pleasure; but the light,the light, my Kitiara, when the sunspangles the rain-gorged sidewalks, and the oilfrom doused lamps rises in the sunstruck water,splintering the light to rainbows! I arise,and though the storm resettles on the city,I think of Sturm, Laurana, and the others,but Sturm the foremost, who can see the sunstraight through the fog and cloudrack. How could Iabandon these? And so into the shadow,and not your shadow but the eager graynessexpecting light, I ride the storm away.