Spring returns dressed in cherry blossoms and melts into the waiting laps of lovers embracing.
We run gentle fingers across the budding magnolias braided into his willow hair, falling into his eyes, brushing blushed cheeks in the wet smelling wind.
“Won’t you stay?” you ask, I whisper.
He caresses our lingering grasp with genteel grass.
Spring lingered in the magnolia-fluttered grass until summer stormed in with windswept hair and wild eyes.
I could barely stand it. All that intense beauty gazing at me. So I sweat and I stuttered, until she left. She moved on.
But I am left in the aftermath of her whirlwind hurricane, panting, parched, exhausted.
The sun remains, though, and the grass still greens, and the river's still blue.
I drown the canal under rain-grey skies.
Spring eludes me, and I miss them.
Through snowmen, down ski hills, past grey-white-coloured highways. By yellow spots in snow banks left by pomeranians and dachshunds and hobos, too, at the empty soup kitchen door.
Dried magnolia petals crumble in my notebooks. Winter howls. Even my bones cry. Each morning, I wake up straining for tinkle melting sounds and the birds who will flock to see my spring, then sleep another day.
Edit #1:
Spring returns dressed in cherry blossoms and melts into the waiting laps of embracing lovers.
We run gentle fingers across the budding magnolias braided into his willow hair, falling into his eyes, brushing blushed cheeks in the wet smelling wind.
“Won’t you stay?” Our whispered wonder.
He caresses our lingering grasp with genteel grass.
Spring lingered in the magnolia covered grass until summer stormed in,
furious hurricane hair with cheerful wildflower eyes.
Summer stomps, a tornado through town—hot passion and sunburnt weathered arms.
Summer leaves paradise with sweating skies and drowning rivers, a parched paradox
Spring is two steps forwards, and I am one step back.
Through snowmen, down ski hills, past coal smudged highways. By yellow spots in snow banks left by shivering chihuahuas and shitzus and hobos, too, hoping for goodness outside empty soup kitchens.
Winter is a sleeping bear whose stomach howls for sustenance. No one wakes.
We float down rivers brushed with green-again willow trees, sun recovering icy banks; we are cherry blossoms dancing across smooth waves and tadpole pools.
We dream of spring.
Edit #2:
Spring returns dressed in cherry blossoms and sun-glowed cheeks, and melts into my waiting embrace.
His willow hair brushes blushed cheeks in a wet smelling wind. Magnolias bud from the braided branches and I run wanting fingers through them, whisper-wondering:
“Won’t you stay?”
He caresses my lingering grasp with genteel grass.
Spring stays in the scent of magnolia spread like jam across grass.
But summer storms in, furious hurricane hair, blown wildflower eyes.
She tears through town—hot passion and sunburnt weathered arms—searching, wanting.
Summer is sweating skies and an abrupt goodbye, drowning rivers.
Spring is two steps forwards, and I am one step back.
I breathe in-out on frozen rivers, iced with diamonds;
a dazzling world, lit from without.
(Without sunlight, reality doesn’t sparkle, but calls from winds barrelling through thin walls; from hungry stomachs in soup kitchens with no soup; from wet boots down city streets covered in grey snow; a world smudged—drawn—with charcoal. )
Spring is tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow lit by dreamy sunlight; a future I waltz with but never bring home.
I am today and today and today, rowing down streams decorated with green-again willows in a world still grey.
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Did some major pruning the past few weeks, and have been playing around with structure and content.
Grateful for any commentary and criticism as always :
And so it goes :-)
Linkto my blog, where I post poetry and occasionally some prose
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