Skipping Stones
Mar 27th, 2005 by Ree Joy
We are leaves in the full bloom
of summer, destined
for autumn glory;
surreal in discourse, we dance
to wind and half-remembered patterns
of spring-time and dreams,
and first kisses.
We have learned to speak truth
with the grey,
seen the lie in black,
discerned deceit in the white.
We know life as it unfolds for us,
for others, and we know ourselves
unwhole,
except in the company of strangers
equally irresolute.
What I know of leaves
I know in the grip of winter-chill,
when, brown and sere,
they sleep crushed in snow.
Mortal, I know, they are;
marked for death as we,
doomed so as early as the first
breath of spring.
But knowing that; I do not
begrudge those times
when mortal coil first wakened me
to wanting infinity;
everytime a robin sang,
everytime I could walk,
with an open mouth,
tiptoeing between raindrops.
The grey has never danced well
for me, or I have never
danced for it;
I do not know the difference.
All I know, now,
between your poetry and mine,
is a longing to sit beside you,
in some place without questions.
There is such a place,
my hopes tell me; so long as I
can find you,
perhaps, after summer and before
autumn. Definitely, before
winter; when the dance between
wind and leaf and rain
becomes
death.
We are summer’s leaves
doomed to
fall.
But before then:
there is moonlight on water,
glitter-motes dancing
through sunbeams;
the taste of dewdrops,
as they dripped, blazing
new trails down our cheeks;
the joy of the summer-wind
before its winter face;
the delicious tartness of the before
before it becomes after.
Bitter-sweet,
like life, before it
dies.
hello there! gorgeous poetry…i have never encountered such profundity…i am stung by your words….