The Child With Emerald Eyes (SONNET)
Summer smiles in sun-kissed bliss with her cloudless days,
Watching over a child with emerald eyes,
Who rocks back and forth in his chair in a joyful haze
And laughs in glee under bright and clear skies.
Winter smiles with her frigid cool and heavy mist,
Drifting down frail snowflakes that float in the air
And melt on the skin of an emerald-eyed man who wished
To be able to forever rock back and forth in his chair.
Summer returns in her sweltering heat,
Watching over a wrinkled old man with a cane,
Whose emerald eyes shine in defeat
At the passing of time that had stolen his youth with no refrain.
The wrinkled, old emerald-eyed man rocks back and forth in his chair with an accepting gaze,
Underneath the watchful eye of Winter and Summer and in his wrinkled eyes: a youthful, fiery blaze.
With Calm Sways (SESTINA)
She calmly floats, swaying
As waves softly lap and swirl
Against her body under a calm
Sky that appeared not stormy
But painted in a soft pink haze
Above water clear as crystal.
Overcome with a sense of rest, her crystal
Blue eyes gazing in swaying
Calm, floating atop water in a peaceful haze
And an unconscious swirl
Of serene lack of a stormy
Sea, washed over with a sense of calm.
Amidst her floating in the calm
Sea, she suddenly jolts with crystal
Clear clarity of times stormy
And gray, and with a more intense swaying,
She remembers and recalls in a swirl
Of sharp understanding in a sudden dark and blurry haze.
She recalled sitting in silence in a foggy haze
Listening to a doctor with steady calm
Who told of an illness in no swirl
Of emotions, but with crystal
Clear clarity, and under a sympathetic gaze, observed her swaying
At the prospect of times stormy.
From then on, there was no end to days stormy
With pain, until one day, a sudden haze
Of dizzy faint struck to leave her swaying
And struck her to the floor with a final sense of calm
And yet sharp crystal
Clear clarity of an overlooming dark, heavy swirl.
It was then she faintly recalled the deafening swirl
Of red and blue to save her from times stormy
But left her and her crystal
Blue eyes in a fleeting haze,
As she ended her struggling and finally closed her eyes with calm
And let go of the overwhelming pain to feel herself suddenly swaying.
Brought to a clear blue ocean and a soft pink haze
Painted in the sky, free of stormy
Days, she calmly floats, swaying.
Missing Tooth (RONDEAU)
Giggling in fleeting bliss, the girl’s face is momentarily illuminated
By the flash of a camera that had caught and captivated
A young girl in the bloom of youth,
Her mouth wide with a missing tooth,
And a laugh, free and liberated.
Now a woman, youth fadingly saturated,
She glances at a photo of a young girl faded
But laughing with a missing tooth,
Giggling in fleeting bliss.
With deepening wrinkles, the woman, sophisticated
With age and laughs weighted
With a solemn truth,
Glances at a photo with no missing tooth,
Of a young girl liberated,
Giggling in fleeting bliss.
Golden, Warm Air
A broken butterfly fluctuates in its soar,
Through a journey over poisonous gardens,
Cool air,
Broken wing flapping,
Flying with its thought: one last time,
But landing with its golden swirls in the warm hands of a warm-handed woman.
A broken woman staggers in her walk,
Through a journey heavy of poisonous people,
Dark air,
Broken past looming,
Walking with her thought: one last time,
But landing in her warm hands: a broken, golden-swirled butterfly.
The broken butterfly flew with the weight of fragile life
Atop its golden-swirled wings,
But remaining now, safely nuzzled against the warmth of a woman
Who had too walked heavy.
The woman weighted with broken past,
Begins to walk steady,
Illuminated by the golden swirls of a golden-swirled butterfly
With a broken wing,
Beginning to fly.
Golden-swirled wings glow from ascending warmth of warm hands,
And is released from the warm hands of the warm-handed woman,
Flying away free,
Into the golden, warm air.
A golden-swirled butterfly with a broken wing,
A warm-handed woman with a broken past,
But themselves no longer broken in harmonized air:
Whole.