" The Pink of Two Flamingoes "

She dropped from Pacific blue
Into my life
With the pink of two flamingoes,

And landing in my hillside garden,
They wintered over, they three
And rested and preened and gleaned
What aid and succor were offered,

And it mattered not
That her tandem
Was plastic pink
From the garden shop,

And that her heart was hidden
As she thought it black and blue
Tho I saw it colored,
A brilliant rainbow true,

Remembering, as they turned
In the shard of a moment,
And when their silent flight
Had lifted them off,

That I winced and shuddered
To think of no goodbye,
Nor fare-de-well,

For left to wander in my reverie
And wonder in my thoughts,

I sometimes search the skies to ask
If they had circled once again
And looked from where
The Seahawk flies...

" GONE "

No more
To my door
Scraped and bleeding
From a falling
With a bicycle.

I patched and cleansed his cuts
Tho not the hurt
And sent him on his way
Always, I would send him away,

Tho now he’s gone
No more to come to my door
Bringing God knew what,
The poet man
Brought to me
Pelicans and potpourri -
His collected things
For me to see.

For no more to my door
To find him
In sun-faced anticipation
Only for me
To rain anger precipitation
And send him away
Mostly frayed
Not allowed to have stayed.

He went his way
But I’ll be damned
He came again
The very next day -

Again, I sent him
On his way,
Scolded him
Bit his ears
And in the sunlight
It could be seen
The green of his eyes
Had the glean of tears

As always, I’ll remember
Throughout each year
Moments in a lifetime lost
To assuage my fear,
Now sitting by windows,
With heart dreams and wishes
That he would appear.

No more to my door,
Leaving his silly bric-a-brac
Verse and cards
And sometimes candies -

He was just a fisher
A-chumming me?
Or, was he stick-and-stay
A little boy man
That I sent away?

For now,
I look into my future
And see a-comin’ around -
Soft and quick,
Without a sound
Those empty nights
Alone in my bed,

An older woman
Getting older
Until as an old woman
My vision of
Who was the fool?

Will come to visit
And revisit me
Alone in my self-sought history
I see he really cared for me,
Loved but me
and yet I wrought this misery

And tho sent away
Day-after-day
A little boy - his little boy,
Would come to ask
Me out to play,
Day after damn silly day -

And thinking I had won,
Sending him off
Until no more
Did he come to my door -

For some others
Saw him lost one day
And closed their doors behind him.

And so I placed this victory cup
Upon my mantle of sins and memories
And it grows dusty with the past,
As the Thornbird sings:"I’ve won at last?"

To a chorus of night time echoes
That I think I sometimes hear
As a knock upon my door,
And as an old woman
From bed I trudge along the floor
But he is never, ever standing there
Nor ever shall
For evermore.

" Long Ago Love, Sicilian Beaches, Sardinian Nights, Corsican Moons " and " Before Ever And Never "

We were meant to look

To gaze one another's eyes,
To see ourselves again
From the long ago
Of unrequited love,

The promises
Many seasons of moons ago,
Back-dropped against time
And the hills
And the shores
Of Sicilian beaches

That only now,
Tasted away,
Once vague and muted yearning
A thousand years ago,
Without relent 'til this moment
When our starlight swath of destiny
Rode the timeline
From all your mothers
And mothers yet again,

Who waited epiphanous
In vigilance
For us to be,
That we be pressed
Against our hearts,
In the sweet languorous
Of Magnolia
And Lemon scented
Sardinian nights,

Star-Jasmined held
In bouquets of perfume
And the hands of Saint Destina
And the pasticcio of lovers' whisper
And breathless talk,
Brushed tears of notes
In honeyed nights
Of lyric and lace,

The swell and rhythmic cadence
Of hardened rosebuds
And the fleshed iron
Of my fathers before me,
Ancient mariners all,
In quests and voyages
Of hundreds of years
Of wanting to hear
Once again,
Your love song's call
In the night.

" Before Ever And Never "

Before we ever
came to be -
I knew you.

Whispered Willows
Wind, storms and billows,
Your glimmerings gladdened,
Gathered me up
Through glade to glacier
Walking my odyssey
With thoughts of Thee
Before we came to be,

Lived an eternity,
Ridden the waves of the sea
Marched aside destiny
All before we came to be.

I searched for you
And saw you in sunsets.

If music hath your soul,
It played upon breezes
As echoes of tomorrow
Beckoned me onward,
Trudging pain from purgatory,
Your soft visage
Was in the heavens’ morning’s sun
And in the rain of dawn’s tears,
Rainbows painted the sheen,
The glint and glaze
Of your wondrous ways,

Of Summer’s love
Days of passion, of grace
An angel’s face of affinity
This quest for Love’s divinity
Came before
We came to be.