Where Shadows Still Dance

She still sits by the window,
eyes glistening in the cold breeze,
listening to echoes no one else hears,
of the dancing footsteps and
calming glees

They again bring the hideous man,
a philosopher, they say, a philanderer, she says.
A man left with the mercy of as many breaths and days
as her own father does

“A husband,” her father insists,
but she pulls away.
How can she belong to a fading breath
when someone else is in her heart’s depth?

“That last goodbye,” she whispers,
I don’t believe as the last.”

In the quiet of night,
she still sees their shadows under the moonlight,
dancing through empty streets,
his arms warm, his eyes still alight.

A prince in disguise, they said,
yet he walked as one of them, to help…to understand them
left behind a crown and throne.
Some as a runaway coward condemn,
others suggest for treason he was thrown.

And then, one night, he disappeared,
since then, no starry night has appeared.

But before the waiting,
before the loss,
there was a morning,
a vine-lit path, soft with moss

The prince in disguise smiled
a stranger unknown,
and soon two hearts had grown

Who knew, it would come to an immortal longing?
Yet she waits, still in vain,
for the charmer between earth and heaven
for she knows someday their story will begin again.

“But didn’t the prince suffer,” mother whispered low,
“From an ache none could cure?”