Something Old New Borrowed Blue

Old (a Rondeau)

In the whole scheme of things

Life has fairly short wings.

Long enough to grow old

And old age can be cold.

Some memories have stings.

Photographs, wedding rings,

The songs he sometimes sings.

Like lasting spores of mold

In the whole scheme of things.

Still some memory clings

Of their exchanging rings.

He stood in tux quite bold.

That memory not dulled

In the whole scheme of things

New

Vivacity in white,

White on white,

The white of new,

The white of fresh.

Who on such purity can gaze?

How like staring at the face of God.

I do.

Trim as a reed is she, I fear to breathe,

Exhaling may bend and blow away such fragility.

What wonderful exquisiteness this dreamer mist.

How can it be clasped, who could, who would?

I do,

Trembling as I teeter on wakefulness

Even as I grasp for a hand of flesh and warmth.

Where am I now? It’s as if I’m there, still new in awkwardness.

How it seems a tick of the clock stole that spoken vow:

I do,

That solemn phrase that made us whole, made us one,

Eternal we thought then, telluric I know now.

Borrowed

Ah, her mother began to cry:

Itsy bitsy tears

Roll down the woman’s snout.

Out came her hanky

To smear the tears about.

Blue

In today’s today the sky is an empty blue

Echoed by the azure of the stone.

Blue was her favorite color,

Which is why I picked it with ease.

A Celastrina rests upon it now,

Calm and unafraid, wings gently folded,

Rippling some in the gentle breeze.

She loved my eyes because they were blue.

Her own were brown, she wished for mine.

I’d gladly give them to her and go blind,

I only gaze in mind upon her now.

The butterfly silently departs,

Its shadow flutters as a flicker

Across the potted Forget-me-nots

To the Chicory beyond and distant.

And the blue sky dims toward twilight,

Into a kind of slate and steel hue

Where now my life is lived in blue.

And still I stay, I haven’t moved.

Fireflies flash now all about.

In the whole scheme of things.

Life has fairly too short wings.

Photo of Celastrina by Jim Asher

An appreciative thank you to Thursday Poets Rally for Perfect Poets Award, week 50.

I nominate for

Award, Kay Salady, at

"My Mind is Frozen."