Maria Poem by John Lars Zwerenz

MARIA

Her hair is raven black, and her eyes are dark.

She wanders through the courtyard at dawn,

Among statues of white, on an emerald lawn,

Happy in the umbrage of the cloistered park.

Her face is of an angel's, and her name is of a song.

Her grace is gilded, meek and crowned.

She blesses the fountains, and all that is around

The vast, royal glen where the boughs are full and long.

And in the nascent evening, when the moon's rays keep

Their vigil of soft silver beneath the starry still,

We rove through slender grasses, to raptures on the hill,

Where her lips of scarlet wine bless me as they weep.

John Lars Zwerenz