Intercession Nineteen
by Emily Isaacson
The virgins of Luberon held vigil
in the fields where they had played as children,
where the edge of the moon is gold-bitten.
Fields of lavender, fragrant in the mail
of lovers, ethereal becomes coarse,
winter-dry, blooms left to faded purple
as opaque candles of a cathedral
dared flame into the open, a long mass
in December re-welcomed the waiting
who had stood outside, presidents in love,
to lotus princes, austere as priests’ hands.
Frankincense rose from the ground—of late—
they had walked on, in sapphire days’ alcoves
lit by lights, the rose windows to far lands.
