Tracing Lines of Frost
At the onset,
A profound peace.
In chastity to silence,
Our days of joy were born.
The lines were clear-
Or so it seemed.
We chose redundancy,
One voice, one choice.
Like a bouquet of flowers,
We were held together,
Our hands, our love
A tender, fragile tether.
Of eternal dreams we dreamt not.
Now’s now was our land.
Tomorrow’s edge,
Defined its end.
We were lovers were we not?
Never not forever never,
Not forever never,
Not ever.
Of essence.
Only presence.
Of this we were sure:
Love would endure.
It was summer back then, was it not?
I remember still, indeed I do,
The sounds in your eyes,
Of trees clapping,
Of earth laughing,
Of birds dancing,
Of grass singing,
Of the mountain,
Standing above with folded arms,
Rolling his eyes,
Pretending not to see us,
Purring like thunder,
Hiding what no mountain could hide,
Happiness I tell you,
That mountain was happy,
For us.
It was summer back then, was it not?
I remember summer’s musky breath,
Our minds were lulled to rest,
Pearls of sweaty dew,
Like drops of lust we knew.
Summer stayed, summer played,
Summer sang, summer rang,
If only summer knew, what you to me would do
Summer would have slain summer’s false refrain
Like a lonely guest summer lingered:
The sun, soft and kind,
Caressed our skin.
In a nest of arms we lay,
Two birds as one,
As warm wisps of tender hope,
Pushed tomorrow,
Until another day…
Our love was a dream,
A lovely dream,
Alas it seems,
It was only that….
Of winter nights
We did not speak
Beyond the bridge
Over yonder
On the other side
We dared not peak
We heard the bells though..
It was hard to tell whose chimes its story
In prose was told in words
So ephemeral and light were they..
But for that one long throng
Whose ring was wrong
Oh that mighty throng
O
That ding
That dong
That tolled not for us
But for everything
But us
Then
The window of your face,
Suddenly dead
Frosty pain and cold stare,
My fingers and nails scraped
Tracing lines of why
(Tell me?)
Across your icy cheeks
(Why?)
Do you deny that through Us
Lies! now
Fields of snow
Whose drifts your eyes
Heavily pull down
To words
Down towards
Down
To the words
Sleeping upon my open palms
Where winter’s grief
Settled
Just yesterday
——
As seasons come and go
And rivers always flow
Reasons dry and sometimes die
Love is an art we never know
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Note: Written circa March 2014. After thinking about writing poetry for many years I finally started “trying” to write verse only some months ago. This was one of my earlier attempts at free verse. Kind of a messy, kind of lopsided, kind of crooked and jumpy. As I don’t feel like working on it again but would rather mush onward I humbly submit this in hope that it will stand as a measure of future poetic growth.
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