The Shape of Happiness

SEPTEMBER

For a longish time I saddled up the dream each morning,

With darkness’ fall, I brushed you off my shoulders

Realigning my balance for dreams.

Old man, you are banished

Into your well of no acknowledgement;

In your inability to reveal love, review life.

Pack your suitcase of pretended nonchalance

Put it by the bus stop bench

For your tour of lonely eternity:

But wait! You are not alone!

It only seemed that way.

You dipped eager fingers into my life

Allowed small satisfactions: matches, not candles

Yes, I liked you imperious & you swelled to fill that role —

When slipping into the kitchen to embrace me

Was all you ever needed to do.

OCTOBER

The linking fingers slide apart

Where once was full embrace…

We are a remembrance of recognition

Smoke without mirrors: an irritant.

The road has twisted; I am no longer faint of heart

Nor will I falter in seeking out of your grasp

I forced all my music into one instrument

When I needed a concert hall orchestra.

Divinity is upon me again

Claimed in its embrace, I dare once more to dance.

NOVEMBER

Time to let you go now.

Unlace the dream tied ‘round my wrist

Close my eyes to open them to the new world

Without shadows.

Time to shoulder my pack

Set by the roadside in anticipation

Of traveling with you

We had a picnic for a feast

A day in the life…

A purloined kiss.

The song’s delicious fading

Out of memory, beyond horizons

Many endings, many deaths

From dearth of dreams.

I shake myself, I rouse to reroute the sun

There are new trails I follow now

I am around your shadow & gone.

2 thoughts on “The Shape of Happiness

Add yours

    1. Thanks, Lis – I appreciate your thoughts! It was a good exercise in opening to another & then parsing what that feeling could exactly encompass. I have decided to go back to the theatre group – now that I’m immune to him. I love performing, memorizing, entertaining, the closeness of putting together a show, the make-believe/reality braiding. Plus my impish / impious nature comes forth like a pointed pencil, I can write you in or – with one flick of the fingers – erase you out. Love can be a narrow alley of ambush or that shortcut to paradise allowing more years to indulge in it. Viva amore!! 🙂 Next opine: when bamboo turns to oak branch.

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