"Why Can't it All be Beautiful?"
Write to me, my note-passing lover,
of sunny schoolgirl days
piled haphazardly in dusty volumes
within the corner of decay.
Your hair was spun of lemonade sunshine,
and I believe your eyes were
amber.
Why can't it all be beautiful?
---
Sing to me, like bluebells,
the forgotten hymns of rings and roses;
my honeysuckle lullaby
played softly on your lips.
Your voice tasted
of hibiscus and of rose-flushed wine,
but our first kiss flowed sweeter.
Why can't it all be beautiful?
---
Time swings in vivid motion,
like a faded yellow photo-album,
caught in the grip of a restless wind.
We were giddy and lost
in a palette of merry-go-round
swirls of color and delight.
I have drunk too deeply
the drought of youth,
and you,
you have passed the goblet on too soon,
forsaking all the colors
for a lonely shade of grey.
---
Grey-
grey like the steel that sent roots through your heart,
grey like Monday and grey like
a funeral sky.
Summer died and heralded
an autumn without hue.
Your hair is grey, your eyes are grey.
Were it that my world was green!
But that, now, is grey too.
Why can't it all be beautiful?
---
Where now is the song of Eden?
Where is the bright-eyed boy I loved?
Perhaps our psalm echoes somewhere
in the vast cathedral of eternity,
but no matter.
It is lost to me now.
Why can't it all be beautiful?
---
You are empty and stiff,
as lifeless as a paper mâché.
Unseeing, unhearing,
unbequeathing of love,
you held my heart in metal's cold grip,
my crimson life seeping through your fingers.
You are faceless and pale,
a hooded shadow of life;
no eyes, no mouth, no heart, no soul, no heart, no tears,
No heart.
No heart.
No heart.
Why can't it all be beautiful?
---
Write to me, my note-passing lover,
of sunny schoolgirl days
piled haphazardly in dusty volumes
within the corner of decay.
Your hair was spun of lemonade sunshine,
and I believe your eyes were
amber.
---
Will my journey find me home,
Or will I melt into grey seas?
And maybe I will meet him there;
the soft-eyed boy you used to be.
There is that passing hope we will be young
and find the songs that we have lost-
because in the beginning,
life was beautiful.
--end--