Never the Bride

Never The Bride

Another morning

rueful with clouds

as Spring wanders through, 

resigned as any working girl

to one more cog and gear john year.

What's her gypsy wage? What silver

crosses her tulip pink palm?

She spreads a thaw

rioting with flowers,

makes every male and female thing

her fool

only to see dry summer

get the wedding

while she's left forgotten

in her white dust veil.

No one stops and waits

for a girl who's on the road.

~April 2014

A little something for Spring, (after a brief conversation on that subject with Walt Whitman and Mark Kerstetter, of

 The Mockingbird Sings--thanks for the inspiration, Mark.)

Image: Lily-Sprout Bouquet, copyright joyannjones 2014

The Child Knife

The Child Knife

For twenty years

I had the care of it--

the blade I  loved--

to sharpen

to keep safe,

a dazzle in my eye

but in twenty years

of slice and shine,

I never guessed

it wasn't mine.

~April 2014

This is a 37-word, revised and rather different version of the poem below, 

for Mama Zen's Words Count

at   real toads

~*~

20 Years Among The Blind

For twenty years

I had the care of it

to love, to shape

to keep it safe, to hold it close

but let it fly, gleaming steel

to lightly touch

 but not too much

a beauty glaring blind my eye,
a deafness living in my ear.

If  I'd spoken less I might have heard
you laughing out your stainless whisper'd word,
 your scream--but silenc,

like any gift I get,
comes late, dawdling in
at the end of the dream;
in twenty years both deaf and blind, 

I saw only shine, felt silver life

and never knew I'd made a knife.

~March 2014

Image :Nourrice assise, tenant son poupon, Georges Seurat, 

Public domain via wikipaintings.org

 

The Box

by Rusty Clark, Flick'rCreativeCommons

The Box

When he gave away the sky

he had no idea

how much he'd miss it,

how the soft dark box

 would go hard, how the small

would hurt his head,

how painting the top blue 

would be pretty

but not enough.

 So he began to

poke a hole 

or two--his stars--

then drew 

down the sun

ray by ray

with a flame finger.

There was smoke

and there was fire

when the box burnt to ash

under the deep-water

cornflower sky.

~April  2014

And so, April begins. I start with a small surplus of poems in the bank, of which this is one, but sooner or later, I'll have to start writing on my feet. Or with my feet, or something. 

Happy National Poetry Month to all.