Our sorrowing time
recalling
our borrowing time–
Her falling
from Heaven,
every day an
unexpected gift,
here briefly.
Today has come
unexpected rift,
searing grief.
Her soul’s flown
fleeing and nearing
heaven now.
She’s whole grown
seeing and hearing
in heaven now.
.
.
In memory of Emily Anne March 28, 1986 – May 5, 2012
Sometimes you capture the most lovely phrases in conversations around you, and they beg to be put into a poem…
.
You are the promise I made to myself,
A gift worth the challenges faced.
You are the promise I dream in faith,
A gift worth the challenges raced.
You are the promise I made to myself.
.
I will fulfil your specific yearning,
A gift of my heart and my time.
I will fulfil the goals unfurling,
A gift of my love and my rhyme.
I will fulfil your specific yearning.
.
You are the promise I made to myself.
At the moment, I’m thinking about The Cat Years…
.
Giving birth
to all the dreams
of a future,
a blessing
longed for,
imagined
named
years—
decades—
before.
Happiness
held tightly
and blinking brown eyes
sleepily from a blanket
tightly wrapped into
a cocoon of possibility.
.
Walking away,
snarling and critical,
bored and irritated,
cynical.
Mocking talents,
unappreciative of
sacrifices made,
opportunities given.
.
Kindnesses
rebuffed,
communication
ignored,
considerations
declined.
.
Mocking the dreams
and the sweet scent of
hope that lingered
in the folds of
new skin
wrapped tightly
with what we thought
was happiness.
.
Possibility is a
far more pleasant
contemplation
than reality.
Your priorities are
not my priorities.
Your time is
not my time.
Your hopes are
not my hopes.
Your deadlines
are not my deadlines.
But all
of mine,
depend
on yours.
What laughter echoes
through empty hallways
mocking joy
mocking always.
What song echoes
through empty places
mocking love
mocking faces.
What words echo
through empty pages
mocking peace
mocking rages.
When we were in Paris last March, I found a shoe sale. I ended up buying a pair of black leather wedge shoes (for just 12 Euros! John said, “How much? Why don’t you buy the brown pair, too?” lol) Now, I don’t really believe in plain black anything, and those wedges seemed to me to be a black board just waiting for something to be written upon them.
So I looked for some fine tipped, permanent opaque pens. I couldn’t find them anywhere within 100 km, so bought the Sakura pens on eBay direct from Japan, and waited for the day when inspiration would strike.
The day has arrived!
My plain black wedges are plain no longer! They sport the complete Petrarchan sonnet Canzoniere 61, in Petrarca’s original Italian. You might remember that this is the poem I translated for Grace Awakening.
Where there are inadvertent spaces (like where I needed to even up a line, and where the next word didn’t fit) I added roses. For each line of the sonnet I switched colours. I completely free-handed these, and I was quite delighted that the entire poem fit EXACTLY between the 2 shoes! Lucky fluke, eh?
I am quite contented with the result, and even more content that I did manage to get the project done before a year was up!
Spring’s promise whispered,
a twilight song warming me.
Buds broke joyfully
from bare, dead, winter branches;
Now they wear a snow blanket.
Creo, ergo sum.
I create, therefore I am.
Or should that be
I am, therefore I create?
Ego sum, ergo creo
A new beginning begins
Another old ending ends
A circle encircles again
Time encloses and bends
.
.
Submitted for Gooseberry Garden. If you’re visiting from Gooseberry, please include a link to your own contribution in the comments so we can return the visit! 🙂
Shawn L. Bird 
toes March 28, 2012
Tags: free verse, love, poetry
My toes travel,
shifting beneath the sheets,
searching for your warm form,
and encounter emptiness.
Where you were
there lingers
a memory of warmth
that leaves me longing,
lonely,
for your return.
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