Juxtaposition

Full Moon

Thank you for joining me again for Poetry Saturday (I really need to come up with a more clever name, now that I've established tradition). This poem is one of my favorite things that I've ever written. I've never decided if it's because of the way the words flow, or because of what it meant to me to write it. Both. Neither. It was the tenderly placed and humbly accepted gift of freedom.

Have a wonderful weekend.

The Juxtaposition of a Mending Heart Against a Sadder Time

if anyone were to ask
was there a time
when the black umbrellas
folded
and the reign ended;
the crows again flew, stark
against the Summer sun;
the scent of roses threw
their stain along the tendrils
of the wind;
and the quiet of a day
no longer stretched itself,
yawning like a wound -
if anyone were to ask
when was the moment
that gave beat to the measure;
what drove
the cloud from the lining;
which dog ate the marrow,
warm and quivering, from
the heart of the bone;
how gracefully the slumbering giant
rolled away from the dew
of morning -
if anyone were to ask
what changed it all
my response would be:
it happened as he
listened to the unspoken;
honored an unshed tear;
gave loft to the gauze
of an airless dream;
held an empty hand until
it grasped everything -
if anyone were to ask
I’d have to say
these things became
fluid
as effortlessly
and unremarked
as the wink of an eye
that is
the color of the Aegean Sea

© Barbara Ann Black, 2010-2011