Girl With Lantern Eyes

Once upon a sinkhole, a prince who'd lost his people Slipped out through Daddy's keyhole late one night With no land left to fight for, nor love quite fit to bite for The crown felt far too tight to slip from sight But when the stars came calling, so free and free for falling Their sparkling arcs across the sky Like fireflies on fixtures, like drops of devil's tinctures He'd drink their liquor and go blind He'd lay for days and wonder, and crawl through caves of slumber While happily ever under, gone for days But in his dreams a lover sprang forth from under covers A crest of deafening colors, songs, and rays With stripes and spotted feathers, a storm of sunny weather She smiled as if forever high But in her eyes were embers of memories long dismembered Of sparks so clever tempers rise So he made to understand her in all her grace and grandeur While flames that only fan her, rise and fall And though the fire burned them, he raked the coals and turned them The steady breath of learning, rise and fall Cause surely as tomorrow has yesterday to borrow A light to follow through the caves Through dark and ancient paintings, of children's rants and ravings Her lantern eyes might light the way