The Child With Emerald Eyes (SONNET)

Summer smiles in sun-kissed bliss with her cloudless days,

Watching over a child with emerald eyes,

Who rocks back and forth in his chair in a joyful haze

And laughs in glee under bright and clear skies.

 

Winter smiles with her frigid cool and heavy mist,

Drifting down frail snowflakes that float in the air

And melt on the skin of an emerald-eyed man who wished

To be able to forever rock back and forth in his chair.

 

Summer returns in her sweltering heat,

Watching over a wrinkled old man with a cane,

Whose emerald eyes shine in defeat

At the passing of time that had stolen his youth with no refrain.

 

The wrinkled, old emerald-eyed man rocks back and forth in his chair with an accepting gaze,

Underneath the watchful eye of Winter and Summer and in his wrinkled eyes: a youthful, fiery blaze.

 

With Calm Sways (SESTINA)

She calmly floats, swaying

As waves softly lap and swirl

Against her body under a calm

Sky that appeared not stormy

But painted in a soft pink haze

Above water clear as crystal.

 

Overcome with a sense of rest, her crystal

Blue eyes gazing in swaying

Calm, floating atop water in a peaceful haze

And an unconscious swirl

Of serene lack of a stormy

Sea, washed over with a sense of calm.

 

Amidst her floating in the calm

Sea, she suddenly jolts with crystal

Clear clarity of times stormy

And gray, and with a more intense swaying,

She remembers and recalls in a swirl

Of sharp understanding in a sudden dark and blurry haze.

 

She recalled sitting in silence in a foggy haze

Listening to a doctor with steady calm

Who told of an illness in no swirl

Of emotions, but with crystal

Clear clarity, and under a sympathetic gaze, observed her swaying

At the prospect of times stormy.

 

From then on, there was no end to days stormy

With pain, until one day, a sudden haze

Of dizzy faint struck to leave her swaying

And struck her to the floor with a final sense of calm

And yet sharp crystal

Clear clarity of an overlooming dark, heavy swirl.

 

It was then she faintly recalled the deafening swirl

Of red and blue to save her from times stormy

But left her and her crystal

Blue eyes in a fleeting haze,

As she ended her struggling and finally closed her eyes with calm

And let go of the overwhelming pain to feel herself suddenly swaying.

 

Brought to a clear blue ocean and a soft pink haze

Painted in the sky, free of stormy

Days, she calmly floats, swaying.

 

Missing Tooth (RONDEAU)

Giggling in fleeting bliss, the girl’s face is momentarily illuminated

By the flash of a camera that had caught and captivated

A young girl in the bloom of youth,

Her mouth wide with a missing tooth,

And a laugh, free and liberated.

 

Now a woman, youth fadingly saturated,

She glances at a photo of a young girl faded

But laughing with a missing tooth,

Giggling in fleeting bliss.

 

With deepening wrinkles, the woman, sophisticated

With age and laughs weighted

With a solemn truth,

Glances at a photo with no missing tooth,

Of a young girl liberated,

Giggling in fleeting bliss.

 

Golden, Warm Air

A broken butterfly fluctuates in its soar,

Through a journey over poisonous gardens,

Cool air,

Broken wing flapping,

Flying with its thought: one last time,

But landing with its golden swirls in the warm hands of a warm-handed woman.

 

A broken woman staggers in her walk,

Through a journey heavy of poisonous people,

Dark air,

Broken past looming,

Walking with her thought: one last time,

But landing in her warm hands: a broken, golden-swirled butterfly.

 

The broken butterfly flew with the weight of fragile life

Atop its golden-swirled wings,

But remaining now, safely nuzzled against the warmth of a woman

Who had too walked heavy.

 

The woman weighted with broken past,

Begins to walk steady,

Illuminated by the golden swirls of a golden-swirled butterfly

With a broken wing,

Beginning to fly.

 

Golden-swirled wings glow from ascending warmth of warm hands,

And is released from the warm hands of the warm-handed woman,

Flying away free,

Into the golden, warm air.

 

A golden-swirled butterfly with a broken wing,

A warm-handed woman with a broken past,

But themselves no longer broken in harmonized air:

Whole.