That golden’d moon
and her
then a child
held eternity’s promise
in share
colorful pails on the ocean’s beach
festooned in starfish and octopus
jelly and jam
on crustless bread
amber-gold campfire’s
‘neath a silvery canopy
of forever stars
and s’mores
scrumptious s’mores
lipstick
smeared on a giddy grin
the world of dress up
and pretend
so eager to grow up
the strum of imagination
that brings song
to the young heart
the thrill of dance
that moves a child’s feet
like god’s marionette
that drives away
the limp of sorrow
but now
summer’s gone
carried off by time
robbed is the color
from the day
as she walks
she remembers
the reds
oranges
blues
the violets and periwinkles
so as never to forget
ever keeping hope
that the joy will return
to massage the rigid cold
to warmth again
the sun
to re-torch the heavens
re-fire life’s hues
as a child
she first saw the gray descend
the twisted labyrinth
the mesmerizing maze
the gapes
and gaps
the lever of lies
that loose the holds
that confined the fear
and pain
she felt the slippage
the hole in the universe
the backward motion
the clickity clack
as all things gentle
got sucked in
blown away
gray had overcome the landscape
gray was in the house
gray was at the dining table
black waited in the chamber
when no one sober
roamed those rooms
and no one safe
was she
that child
balancing precariously
on fate’s highwire
when wrong things burned
bitter as paregoric
the way jugged
johnny walker whiskey
burns the throat
that burned that skin
like bare knee
on rough rug
like pumice
on raw flesh
that winter’d touch
that chilled her heart
when laughter bowed out
and lies and hurt
bowed in
like the poison
in a lizard’s wattle
when denied was that promise
of violet and periwinkle
oranges
blues
reds
only gray
with black always waiting
at the fringe
with a talon’s piercing sting
silent and swift
as wing’ed night
and the startled bruise
that began the tome
of her life as a child
innocence disappeared
like smoke up a charred chimney
her child’s smile
now safely stowed away
kept protected
for a new time
of that moon
and that promise
and now she walks
a young woman
on a starry’d night
wandering back
towards that golden’d moon
curious as a child
and hopeful
wondering
if the periwinkle
might someday return
*
rob kistner © 2022
Poetry at: The Sunday Muse