Forgetting How to Fall Asleep

A train wails at the edge of night.
What sleep have I had? Very little...
Okay, concentrate, lie very still,
think of nothing at all, not even sleep.
But the day is swirling, my heart is racing,
my breathing is under my conscious control
(such a fragile feeling) - Okay, hear I go...
No, still wide awake...this isn't so easy.
I'll try maybe coming up with some rhymes:
Was it the tea or the chocolate cake?
Whatever it was, I'm still wide awake...
No, that didn't help -
The tree-shadows quiver, the rabbit-moon shines,
there are words on the ceiling in the crooked lines...
That's awful -
Every solar flare is rightfully named
after the one who first saw it, and had it framed -
Was that a half-dream? Now at last...
That's how I know that I'm fading fast:
nonsense thoughts intruding in,
there it is again:
something about horses
eating steaks with knives and forkses
from square leather plates...
the soft darkness around my face,
breathing dark light, it won't...be long...

A little orphan tear

A little orphan tear
slipped quietly out
from the asylum
of the eye
that beheld
such tender
and exquisite joy -
and fled swiftly away.

A Cautionary Tale

It was purposely and without remorse,

and with the aid of a reluctant horse,

that all the children out in the yard

pushed on the Old Wall very hard

until it toppled over with a crash.

Then Oliver, who was always brash,

surmounted in glee the pile of rubble

and said at last it would be no trouble

for them to come and go as they please,

they could even walk out among the trees

that surrounded the village on every side,

beyond the wall they had all decried.

But dusk was falling and light grew dim,

so Oliver, smiling, said unto them:

"Now off to bed - I will show you tomorrow

that being closed-in has been our only sorrow."

So each to their pillows and blankets withdrew

and dreamed of a world so wide and so new.

But in the night, the werewolves crept

from the forest and devoured them as they slept.

To sleep again

I must return to sleep again,
where all was starlight-snow
falling soft upon velvet-moss,
where the air was filled
with the music of mint-roses
and the silver shadows melted
under a tattered organdy moon.
Our fingertips touched,
and the words we whispered
took flight as paper moths
and fluttered in the water-wind
that shimmered and shuddered as it flowed
towards the distant waves of hills
quietly crashing in the tender twilight.

Cygnus Sorrow

With such fair grace, the amber light

had filled the chalice-sky of spring

and touched the swan as she took wing,

departing in serene and stoic flight.

But why leave just as the warmer clime

had settled in and expelled the cold,

when all is a dazzle of green and gold,

a triumph over the wintertime?

Yet there she goes with graceful head

pointed towards the northern hills,

to pursue the lingering winter-chills

that from the joys of spring had fled.

Like fire, but colder

Like fire, but colder,
like a whisper, but bolder,
she laid her head upon my shoulder
and succumbed to the gentleness of sleep.

The flames began to smolder,
still young, but getting older,
I put my arm around to hold her
and then I myself fell asleep.

Like darkness, but brighter,
like iron, but lighter,
in my dreams I held her tighter
as we breathed together in sleep.

Morning-fire

Morning-fire, the open sky,
a brilliant blossom passes by
with blazing heat that burned away
the shadow-cowl at break of day.

The celestial cup begins to brim
with golden-wine, as a glad hymn
is intoned by clans of feathered-kin
who rejoice that day has come again.

The obsidian-velvet night descends

The obsidian-velvet night descends
as the dying-candle daylight ends.
The last among the brilliant slivers
of golden dusk, like gilded rivers,
shudder not as they cast off life
but in grace depart without any strife.

When endless caverns above the world
are fully revealed, the stars are unfurled
which, along with the moon that soon will appear,
will shine through the darkness to quell every fear
and to rouse night-insects from daytime-dreaming
to sing shrill with joy under silver-lights gleaming.

Lucid in Sleep

[Composed by the late William T. Moore (d. 1974) and found among the many boxes of treasured items kept by his wife Claire (d. 2011). It was handwritten on the back of a utility bill dated November 15th, 1956.] 

I am awake now, Claire, after hearing you say:
Tomorrow will bring but another day.
You uttered these words from where you lay
with eyes open wide to see.

Before I could respond, you fell back asleep
(if indeed you had even emerged from sleep)
leaving me wakeful, my vigil to keep
with eyes open wide to see.

I am thinking of what I had wanted to say:

that each morning brings us a better day,
but I see from your face you are now far away

without eyes open wide to see.

You are sleepwalking through the halls of your mind,

through twilight and shadows, hoping to find

something you lost for which you have pined,
keeping eyes open wide to see.

The shadow-shapes shift across these walls

as the bright round moon quietly crawls
across the sky, with a light that falls
on my eyes open wide to see.

You, in your slumber, are now quiet and still;
I remove my vigil to the windowsill.
Tonight, whether I want to or not, I will
have eyes open wide to see.

The grey light of dawn will soon stir you awake

and furnish us with gifts of time we can take.

But stay lucid in sleep this night for your sake

as I keep eyes open wide to see.

The Shadow-fall

The shadow-fall, the nettle-weed,
the petal-pile, the settled-seed,
the sleeping-trees, the lucid-leaves,
the mirror-stream and spangled-eaves.
The nectar-winds from fields afar
breathe bashful under moon and star
and pass this way in whisper-drifts
to bring the dewy darkness gifts
of brittle kisses and solitude
and, finding the night in pleasant mood,
joins half the world in gentle shade
and caresses every leaf and blade.

Winter Hopes

Wherein what is DEAD is brought to LIFE

[This piece incorporates the solution to a "doublet" or "word ladder" word puzzle, in which one word is changed into another by successive steps of altering one letter at a time. Each intermediate step must also be an actual word. The original concept was invented by Lewis Carroll in the 1800's. The DEAD/LIFE pairing is my own. I thought I would attempt to make the solution into a poem. You may want to try to solve it yourself before reading my poem, which gives one of several possible solutions. The original rules, as given by Carroll, involve competing to come up with the fewest number of steps. My solution has 23 steps, and so there are 24 lines in the poem. Technically, the steps in lines 11 and 21 are not needed but I included them for the structure of the piece. There is an alternate solution with only 18 steps.]

O DEAD world, will you heed my call?

Are you DEAF, can you hear me at all?

The LEAF is brown, the year is old,

the horse is LEAN, the weather cold.

The summer months called in their LOAN,

the LOON gives one last mournful moan.

LOOK! The geese are flying away,

the black-cloaked ROOK alone will stay.

As hard as ROCK this earth will be

and stay a while under LOCK and key.

Good LUCK to all, and may all take heed

who enter this time of LACK and need.

Queen Anne's LACE will not grow there

along the swift RACE of waters fair.

When the RAKE has gathered leaves,

a WAKE is held and each tree grieves

and waits cold months until a WAVE

of blessëd warmth returns to SAVE

this world from the CAVE of winter drear

and brings us all into a COVE of cheer.

In trees will be heard the coos of the DOVE

and lilies will nod in zephyrs of LOVE.

The robins will sing because they LIVE,

as the earth springs forth with LIFE to give.

In Edith's Room at Nightfall

Her face pale in the mirror,
       a vase of dry roses,
a half-eaten pear,
       a painting of Moses
in anger overturning
       the calf made of gold,
The Complete Works of Tennyson,
       some bread growing mold,
a dust-covered photograph
       of a young bride and groom,
a large cobweb hanging
       in one corner of the room,
thin curtains blowing
       over letters on the floor,
Edith brushing her gold hair
       and whispering: nevermore.

Ocean Reverie

Heavy waves of blue-green tears
are falling with fury and rushing away
beneath a noisy flock of seers
who, with their screeching voices, say:

Come away! Come from this shore!
From shifting sands and fading sky!
From lands that soon will be no more!
Come with us now! Come with us fly!

I awakened then where I had slept
and dried the tears that I had wept.

The sky was bare; the gulls were gone.
The evening had grown swiftly chill.
Sunset was dwindling drear and wan,
but the darkened water was heaving still.

Heaving and bringing up to my feet
dead seagrass and broken shells,
all the things the ocean beat
and scoured clean within its swells.

Then over the tide flew one last bird
but silent as death it spoke not a word.

A gentle cyclone of pigeons

Spurning all weight of gravity,
a gentle cyclone of pigeons
revolves in hushed frenzy
up towards the ghost-grey sky
then back down, over and under,
round about, in hypnotic splendor, 
a flight of flights, a dizzy clockwork
orbiting with tattered wings,
with axis tilting, the gears
meshing in the soft machinery,
free to soar, but going nowhere,
making a spectacle of small circles
then retreating back to familiar roosts
underneath the dark and filthy overpass.

Laudable the hours

Laudable the hours wasted here

and valuable every squandered year

underneath the spell of solitude

renewed by draughts of quietude.

Evening is heaven to famished eyes

nourished by feasts of starry skies

as fragrant moonflowers slowly bloom

and nightingales serenade the gloom.

Down stony paths go weary feet

rewards of sleeplessness to meet:

each winking star and trembling leaf

will assuage the heart in every grief.

Seaside Study

Mingled with these waves are voices of the ages:
laughter, weeping, the discourse of sages,
the turning, turning, turning of pages
filled with foam-words fleeing away.

White heralds above proclaim the news
with lovely but coarse and wistful mews
from their lofty and wind-tossed views
over shimmering salt seaspray.

The pink sun is leaving, the wind is sighing;
a single great blue heron is flying
close to the water while the day is dying
and while golden shores are turning to grey.

Never such somber joy

Never such somber joy, such pitiful
happy brilliant aches. Never such
bright impressive sorrow, such raging
exuberant blessëd peace. Never such
beautiful jarring light, such wistful
fragrant deafening song. Never such
consuming brittle solace, such abiding
quiet forgotten innocence. Never such
simple impoverished wisdom, such blithe
solitude, such sweet and somber somber joy.

Mr. Edgar McMillan lectures his nephew while walking through a festive crowd.

[A follow-up to "Disturbed by Spring."]

“Nephew,” said Edgar, “look around this place,

such happy expressions are on each face.

But behind each smile is a grinning skull

and upon this sober thought I mull

when beaming faces shine at me

so bright that I can scarcely see.

The expressive skin but covers bones

as cold and rigid as senseless stones.

All I see here are skeletal frights,

and I cannot abide such loathsome sights!

Such masks, such lies, such vain display!

Let us take our leave, we shall not stay!"

"But Uncle," said John, "you are too severe.

Let us partake of the revelry here!

For life is short, you must surmise,

and to spend it thus methinks unwise:

To see the bad in every good

to spoil the world, as if you could

steal the sheen from the golden sun

and shame these good folk in their fun.

The heart inside your very chest

still beats, I bet, and will attest

against your will, to the good desire

for human love, and for the blazing fire

of the Creator's Love, which you reject,

but rejects you not as you expect.

So banish every morbid thought

and embrace the goodness you have fought!"

And said the angered McMillan then:

"I cannot abide this foolish din!

Such empty speech of life and love,

of some benign divinity up above.

Boy! No goodness is to be found

and your hopes for such will hit the ground

when they topple from such platitudes.

No! Stay such nauseous attitudes!

Come - this gathering has made you bold

and made you forget the things I told

that little boy who came to me

when both his parents perished at sea,

on some frivolous trip they took

forsaking my good advice - oh, look!

that old couple there slovenly dancing

and all the crowd behind them prancing

like wild deerlings, around the square

as if they had not a single care.
I pity their foolish deluded joy,

mark me well - but where are you, boy?"

Then he saw among the reveling crowd

John dancing there and laughing loud.

100th posted piece: William Vintnerose

Gentle William Vintnerose
can fill a journal with brilliant prose
describing how a live oak grows
from acorn to ancient tree.

He can also approach grazing does,
as quiet as a breeze he goes,
and pets them each upon the nose
as they nuzzle him tenderly.

In those fields, he feeds the crows
little morsels of bread he throws.
Each one of their names he knows
and he calls to them all with glee.

He can often be seen out in the rows
of growing corn in an outstretched pose
surrounded by his favorite crows,
a happy scarecrow effigy.

And at night whenever a full moon glows,
William can be found in serene repose
underneath the old live oak that grows
in the middle of a cornstalk sea.

Uncharted Melancholia

A country lies hidden beyond the sea
where mists shroud shores perpetually,
and trees are ever in autumn bloom,
casting deep shadows of golden gloom.
The silver rivulets warble and weave
through woodland halls that serenely grieve
the advent of a somber and lonely bliss
that replaced the vibrant life they miss.
The traveller gets lost there without a map
and reclines in exhaustion for a needed nap.
While sleeping the years slip swiftly away
and he awakens as someone ancient and grey.
Golden leaves tremble above his eyes
and no one hears his contented sighs.

Wet Bird

Hail, fair robin - we are gladly met

though your feather-clothes are sopping wet

from all this rain that is falling yet -

so hurry along to home.

Why stand you there with curious eye

getting pelted with water, refusing to fly?

Must you wait until your wings are dry

before you hurry along to home?

No, you can't come with me inside

although the door is open wide.

I care not how much you chide

this is not your home.

Now the rain has stopped, or can't you see?

You can therefore lay off staring at me.

Shake the water from your wings and be

hurrying along to home.

I suppose

I suppose that someday

it will come to pass

that even sunlight

will be considered crass.

"Because," they will moan,

"it is much too bright

and we are rather

content with night."

Elsie Hawkins

Elsie was a little girl who happened to grow old.

Her pale blue eyes retained the same sparkle

they had when, back in her school-days in Wiltfordshire,

she would chase the boys over some feigned outrage

and, upon catching them, would kiss them until they turned crimson.

The wrinkles that now covered her face would pose a difficulty

to all but the most astute cartographer.

They had a tendency to become little overflowing river valleys

when, upon her hearing old Billy Cotton songs on the phonograph,

her eyes would release quiet tears over remembered joys.

When approached by her little great-grandchildren,

she would smile a summer’s worth of sunshine

and clasp each one around the face with her crooked hands.

Nearly singing she would say: “Oh Robert [or Sara or Peter or Caroline],

Granny Elsie loves you so so much!”

She would hug them each until they started to squirm

and then bequeath a peppermint a piece

before they all tumbled away laughing.

She would gaze off in their direction with a lingering smile

long after they had disappeared elsewhere in the house.

beautiful and bittersweet

beautiful and bittersweet

good folk I will never meet

passing by me in the street

at the brightness of high noon

such good fortune slipped away

the sun set on another day

no gilded hope could make it stay

at the brightness of high noon

head on pillow in the night

blankets wrapped around me tight

in dreams I walk in golden light

at the brightness of high noon

Alexey Leonov

Cosmonaut buoyant
in the womb of space,
caressed by darkness
and warm solar kisses,
tethered to his Voskhod,
the most attentive of mothers,
while the luminous world below
throbs with life and awaits,
with gentle and open arms,
the newborn child.

When first we met

[From The Recollections of John William Llewellyn, c. 1933]

When first we met, you were selling
bunches of wildflowers along
the dusty Manchester Road. I felt
something akin to sanctifying grace
in the bright felicity of your smile.
You and your little sisters were asking
a ha'penny for your bouquets, and when
I placed five pence in your pretty hand,
you drew a quick breath and looked at me
with confused delight. The giggles of your sisters
as they passed around the coins was like
a tree full of sparrows in the dewy morning.
You thanked me more with your eyes than with
your whispered words. You then looked down
at your boots which were stirring the dust.
Your mother called from down the way
and laughing you all hurried, hand in hand
and with white dresses fluttering, to show
her your small fortune. You waved back to me
and smiled. Tipping my hat, I resumed
my own travel, carrying away the little bunch
of daisies and bluebells, cowslips
and cornflowers, tied up with a green ribbon,
that is still sitting here on my bureau-table
these twenty-five weary years later.

Fossils

Many of the older graves here

are marked with serene

and stone-winged maidens

who gaze out upon springtime

swelling in the great Necropolis,

lovely fossilized Muses

who, though grimly mute,

never fail to inspire.

cab ride in the rain

a brilliant and teary-eyed

mingling of passing city lights

shimmers in muted shifting auras

through the backseat passenger windows,

where blurry buildings weep together

and streaks of watery crimson-flames

meet sleepy cerulean waterfalls

that slip across crystalline lenses
to escape the bleary neon night

sidewalk

a jumbled parade

of passers-by

with legs scissoring

and heads held high,

an endless dizzy

circus show

of strangers

I will never know

Jerome

[From Memoirs of an Ordinary Guy]

Jerome was a sincere and affable fellow. With his good-natured smile, he was ever eager to engage in conversation with anyone he happened to meet. He was quite articulate when he spoke, despite the severe brain injury he had received as a teenager. The deep scar was still visible on his left scalp where his hair never fully grew back in.

The house he rented while he attended university smelled of dust and old bananas. It had no interior doors, so blankets were nailed to the tops of the doorframes to serve the purpose. A single flickering floor lamp illumined the living room in which sat a threadbare couch, a number of unpacked cardboard boxes, and a large aquarium with brown water and no fish. On the couch, a scrawny mounted deer head stared up at the ceiling, waiting patiently to be hung upon the wall.

We sat on folding lawn chairs around a flimsy metal TV tray and played chess. Jerome, with his eyes gleaming, meticulously set up the black pieces on his side of the board. After I had finished setting up the white pieces, he corrected the positions of my king and queen with a small chuckle and said something about "queen on her own color."

We then waged tabletop warfare and ate Sun-Maid raisins from little boxes. He spoke of his mother, who taught school back in Cleveland, and of his cat Groucho, who had to be left behind. At times, he also made odd references to Darth Vader, in connection with certain moves I made in the game, which he obviously found very amusing. I laughed as if I understood.

Jerome had a firm grasp of the strategy of chess, which I did not. I soon realized why he had so eagerly invited me to play. After several moves that proved unwise on my part, he forced me into giving up my queen to protect my king and my game swiftly unraveled from there. As the light outside grew dimmer, he deftly brought me to checkmate between one of his knights and his queen. He looked up and smiled, obviously pleased with the outcome. He shook my hand heartily saying "good game, good game." I congratulated him on the win and remarked that we would have to have a rematch soon.

As I rose to leave, the telephone rang in the kitchen. After he answered it, I heard him say "Hey Mom," and then, "hold on, ok?"

He looked over to me as I was approaching the door and said "Later Vader." I waved and smiled, and opened the door into the late September twilight.

As I was closing the door behind me, I heard him say, "Oh, I was just saying bye to my best friend Todd."

I smiled to myself and wondered at him saying that because I had only met him just that day.

I looked out upon the darkening world. High clouds were streaked across a fading florescent sky. Headlights and taillights shone brightly along Fort Avenue as the last of the tardy streetlamps blinked awake. The smell of grilling food was on the cool breeze and I paused to imagine from what sort of gathering it drifted.

I approached my little Honda Civic, which was slumbering there in the shadows. The traffic was light as I drove home.

This tender alchemy

Behold the world, a simple fire
beyond the windows of our eyes
prismed through so many facets
arranged in lucent tapestries
and charged with precious metal photons
which create, like a Midas of sorts, 
golden treasures where the light touches
but without the curse, this tender alchemy
transmutes the wide and raging universe,
down to the subatomic galaxies spinning,
into incitements for a blissful joy
richly blazing in a single flame,
in the simple fire that is the world.

Saturday morning downtown

The chill wind in the streets smells of rain.
A plastic bag glides down the sidewalk
looking for her lost children.
With white nightgown fluttering unheeded,
she passes by unhandsome office buildings
which, being bored by the day's quietude,
are staring into each other's thoughtless eyes.

A big meat-necked man is walking his Pomeranian
while pensively smoking a fresh cigarette.
A young woman with perfect posture jogs by
wielding a formidable length of mop handle.

The five-day forecast calls for the rain to settle in by noon
and to linger until Monday morning.
The pavement is currently as dry as that big man's hacking cough.

A particularly strong gust rushes through with vehemence.
In swift and graceful flight, the implacable mother ascends,
like a freed revenant, towards the grey and churning heavens
to see if perchance her dear ones are there.

The Cliff-face Gentleman

The cliff-face gentleman has missing teeth,

which lay now in the surging creek below.

One by one loosened by the passing seasons,

each succumbed to gravity and fell away.

He can see them down there, silent and aloof,

underneath the bright and crystalline current.

Eventually they will all be pushed downstream

never to be seen by his stony eyes again.

With a gaping frown, he peers down forever

as the night-shadows deepen upon him.

Train Ride

Cold raindrop tears are sliding across the window,
blurring the bucolic Minnesota scenery:
barns and silos, trees and fences,
mournful fields of brittle cornstalks.
The cows, having grown weary of passing trains,
turn their horned heads absently away.

The sky has been grey now for over a week.
The rain had stopped once, during the wedding,
only to return and soak us all outside the church
waving farewell to the bride and groom.

They seemed to be such a happy couple:
she, with rosy cheeks and dimpled elbows,
floated in euphoria on the arm of her beloved
who, although red-faced from all the attention,
merrily grinned with all his teeth.

The world is looking brighter outside my window;
the sun has worked its way around the clouds.
We pass by golden fields of dancing wheat
rejoicing in the warmth of the widening sunshine.
The train pulls into the station at Hastings;
two more stops and I will be home.

Nepenthe Spring

In breezes thick with the sweetness
of pollen-incense, all is forgiven.
The chills of winter offenses
are no longer brought to mind
in a land richly fragranced
with such tokens of vitality.
The nepenthe nectar rising
into these rigid tree-bones
returns fresh and vibrant vigour
to a divested and stricken world,
long lain as if in a frigid tomb.
This golden wine of Spring
brings abundant solace
as every frozen recollection
melts swiftly away!

The Seine is a tale-bearer

The Seine is a tale-bearer,
though glittering in diamond innocence.
The wolds all about her banks
brim with the warbling words
of little tongues lapping the shallow shores.
Tall grasses, half-submerged
and with heads hot in the golden air,
rustle in sudden gusts like whispered secrets.
Château Gaillard sits in silence,
like a ruined lover,
and believes every word she hears.

Eternal Clepsydra

Countless hourglasses are spilled out here
upon the farthest edge of substantial earth
where bitter waters tumble in endless array
and forever sift the decaying sands of time.
Scattered wide upon this golden shore
are intricately molded cogwheels and gears,
springs and pulleys, weights and pendulums,
the dislocated intestines of a million clocks,
like bronze and copper mollusk-shards 
eroded and rusted, battered and broken
grated and ground until they are no more. 

Stranger in Old Town

You thought I knew my way around
but those streets all look the same at night.
All of the shops and cafés closed at ten
and there was no one about after that
(except for a thin suspicious cat
and a pigeon I heard cooing from a balcony.)

I twisted my foot on a cobbled sidestreet.
The roses were crushed when I fell.
I left them there in the darkness.
The wind blew some of the petals away.

I knew the direction of the public beach.
I went there and sat in the sand.
I watched the waves tumble in the moonlight.
I fell asleep a few times.

I dreamed I was a clown in the circus
but no one laughed at my antics.

In the grey morning, before the markets opened,

I caught a city bus and went home.

In dulcet slumber, the amaranth

In dulcet slumber, the amaranth

fondly dreamed of amber blessedness

dripping like honey from golden billows

that lazed across the skies of June.

Sonorous breezes pervaded her blossoms

and sweetened her nectar with an aria-wine.

But while intoxicated with such melodious delights,

she was abruptly awakened by omens of rain.

The End of Winter

Serene and wistful, like a widowed centenarian,
whisper-gusts wander through the winter wheat
beneath the alabaster mountains of the moon
that gleam behind a fraying cirrus-veil.

The elderly season, in quiescent assent,
dwindles and fades gently away,
knowing that the vibrant débutantes of Spring
are burgeoning behind her and dancing for joy.

The Sky-battle

The war-hungry cloud-minions
lay siege to the nighttime heavens.
With a vicious surge, they defeated
even valiant Orion and the Sickle-Moon.
Bright lightning, like electrified veins,
throbbed in the forehead of the angry sky
while, with a rumbling and arrogant roar,
the Storm-Tyrant proclaimed: "I am come!"

The Dreamer

What follows now, gentlemen, is a detailed account of what I observed in the study of Mr. Jonathan Milton on the evening of June 18th, 1897, while I was a guest at his home in Bexleyheath:

There were detailed maps of the Moon in various phases,
meticulously inked onto crisp parchments,
along with a small deceased Falco peregrinus
stretched out and pinned to a framed canvas.
An elegant bronze goblet half-filled with rosemary water
stood beside a bowl of rotting pears and pomegranates.
A sputtering white candle, melted down to a mere nub,
had spilled its wax in hardening mounds out upon the desk.
The grey-bearded gentleman was seated there,
with his head resting serenely on the parchments,
and he held a dry feather-quill in his gaunt hand.
White moths with their powdered wings
fluttered like snow against the windowpane,
again and again, out in the slumbering darkness.
The man then stirred and spoke out in his sleep:
O Luna! Luna! Ego veni te hodie nox!

Plaids and Polka Dots

Dearest Johanna,

After all those years,
your words were often as fresh in my ears
as Christmas carols in springtime.

We walked through wild and vibrant hues
clothed in blacks and navy blues,
speaking with words that almost rhymed,
like cherry-lime and eglantine.

But such as it was, it was fine.

Though we were paired
like plaids and polka dots,
stripes and spots,
country-fried okra and kumquats,
you loved me well
and I adored you so;
it was swell.

But now -
now it is over.
So, my love, farewell.

Your loving Henry.

I placed the note back on the ground,
upon the grave where it was found.