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
You’re so darn’d versatile, Rob ~ this is just beautiful!
~David
Thank you David… 🙂 …I get bored easily, so I am always in pursuit of what lies just over the next rise.
Naughty Rob! It really is only one post per person, each week, for P&SU.
Sorry Rosemary. I write and post, and enjoy reading when health permits. I forget the specifics at times. I mean no disrespect my friend… 😉
OK, never mind, we’ll just keep on deleting your second posts when you forget – meaning no disrespect either, but because we can’t favour you over everyone else.
It would be lovely if you could link your poems one at a time so we wouldn’t have to miss out on some – but we understand that you probably have so many we’d have to miss out on some in any case.
My old tired brain forgets the details of participation sometimes, and with my eyesight, scanning the sites to remind myself is not always easy. I write and write all day, most everyday, to keep the mind oiled, and many of them never get through final edits for me to publicly publish on my Image & Verse site — but far more do, than I could post to the several sites in which I participate, and remain under the limits quantifications. I try to sort through and find pieces that fit the prompts, or write a brand new original piece when I am so inspired. Pecking at my keyboard all day helps me keep my crooked arthritic pointy finger on my right hand nimble enough to continue to operate the keyboard on my old iPad. My eyesight is diminishing, and my eyes tire frequently — so I write in spurts all day, because I can’t stop, I’d go crazy. My friends think I already am. If so, it’s a pleasant kind of madness. It’s not as easy anymore to visit and read all the work from the other poets, but I do, to the degree I am capable, because other’s work I find stimulates my imagination — and offers inspiration in my own writing… and at times, gob smacks me.
Our lives change much like the moon’s reflection. This is a lovely poem Rob!
Thank you Carrie, and yes, our lives are constantly evolving — hopefully upwardly.
This set the scene so vividly that I share the hope in the last stanza.
Thank you Chrissa, as do I… 🙂
May we all be ‘curious as a child and hopeful’ 🙂
I hear you Angela, and agree wholeheartedly. I certainly try personally to never lose my sense of wonder.
What a beautiful poem this is – the description of childhood, so magical, until sad things happen. Beautifully told, Rob. As a woman, hopefully she will rediscover that magic through her own children’s childhoods.
Sherry, it would’ve been mine, but she never married.
This is genius Rob! The combination and circle back to the start was beautifully done.
Thank you Sara — life is a journey out and in.
We always hope to regain just a touch of our innocence.
Yes brett, for most, but some have had it driven so deeply, the hope is all they ever get. It is for them I wrote this piece.