It is from an
earlier chapter
written decades
ago, a page
penned before
Jimmy Carter and Nixon’s ghost
would briefly
take the stage.
It was all real,
not an idle diversion
or sabbatical
from the courses I’d run.
No, young nymph,
you were my dear,
and I trust you
knew my love
was palm to palm
and always near
wherever we took
our sport:
the Quarter, the
lake, some dark tavern
or theater in
which our fingers were laced and lapped,
if you catch my
drift.
You always knew
my inner gears,
the turning of
unspoken words,
some fleeting
thought not yet formed by lips
otherwise
engaged in moist red dances
or afternoon gin
and tonic sips.
And I knew your
eddies and currents as well.
Not everyone can
cast such a synchronistic spell.
We could have
talked in pidgin for hours
and always known
the warp and woof,
known what was
yours and mine,
but mostly ours.
I had written a
much longer poem,
a message in a
bottle
with all the
whys and wherefores
on a parchment
in palimpsest,
a metaphysical
conceit
that unlocked
all locked doors,
but what purpose
would be served?
Since you could
not wait on time and tide forever,
it is fitting
that all righteousness be observed.
I occasionally sit in an abbey nave,
quite alone,
counting saints.
St. Peter says my
eye to you should not now roam.
St. Jude
whispers that you, with grace,
have found a
shining hearth and home.
I am glad, and
tell him so,
for I could wish
no less
than spinning
wheels and looms
for one whose
tapestry was so rich
and held the
promise of gold
in each and
every stitch.
My lost horizon
will always have a bookmark
to hold the
page, the months that passed that year,
but your couplet
deserved a fitting rhyme
when my meter
stumbled and lost its cadence for a time.
Just know this,
my ever-cherished love and friend:
you were indeed
a rainbow coming around the bend
in my once upon
a time. No less.
No less.
~William Hammett
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