12-30-2022, 11:39 PM
There’s the holidays
and then there’s the Holy Days,
moments when I first or last caught sight
of one of my muses,
one being Kathy, who I christened the Faun,
a little red-haired girl,
she grew up in the East Texas oil refineries,
fled to Austin to become a poet’s girl.
I tried to peel her away
from an English snob who treated her
like a girlfriend, instead of the mystical female
that she was. The last time I saw her
was a chance meeting on Guadalupe St.
My backpack was filled with Proust
and we stopped in out of the rain
to have a cup of tea. I didn’t know
it was the last time I’d be seeing her
else I would have held her back
when she got up to leave.
Failing in that, I’ve carried her with me
for forty odd years. But that’s how it is
with muses, they come and go as they please,
leaving their lonesome poets
with the indelible stain of song.
and then there’s the Holy Days,
moments when I first or last caught sight
of one of my muses,
one being Kathy, who I christened the Faun,
a little red-haired girl,
she grew up in the East Texas oil refineries,
fled to Austin to become a poet’s girl.
I tried to peel her away
from an English snob who treated her
like a girlfriend, instead of the mystical female
that she was. The last time I saw her
was a chance meeting on Guadalupe St.
My backpack was filled with Proust
and we stopped in out of the rain
to have a cup of tea. I didn’t know
it was the last time I’d be seeing her
else I would have held her back
when she got up to leave.
Failing in that, I’ve carried her with me
for forty odd years. But that’s how it is
with muses, they come and go as they please,
leaving their lonesome poets
with the indelible stain of song.