And Again, The Muse

I hear no voice but hers.
She calls me silently.
It is dead of night,
but still I come.
Out of bed to answer her midnight summons.
Bleary eyes and tired bones,
Awaken reluctantly to bend to her service.
A mistress cruelly kind,
ever in need
to be heard.
Her soft whisper
a lover's request
silent in my ear,
Her gentle caress
but a passing breeze
across my bare shoulders.
Infrequently at best,
does she darken my door,
or rap upon my window.
But when she appears,
when she graces my heart
with her rapturous presence,
I cannot
I will not
I desire not
to continue whatever I was previously at.
And I stop.
Time and Space,
Matter and Energy,
Stop.
And I make my way
to my keyboard,
And I write what my ephemeral lover tells me.

L.
1/24/96