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wordsmith, imagesmith, spiritsmith |
Mother’s birthday to the attic calls me, sad as tears,
where behind tight-hinged door lies fallow an abandoned tin of family lore
bearing stories of the seed whence came my being and my fears.
Spidery darkness shivers my timid spirit, and the store
of light I seek, buried deep, is nowhere found. But in the dark,
abandoned for richer trousers, coat and tie, hang jeans, muddy.
In the pocket hide calcified petals and scribbled word, the sapling spark
of verse flowered when Coleridge and Keats drew me in to study:
“Behold a rose that softly sleeps in spring,
no more to winter’s snowflake will it cling.”
Lines birthed as a blossom from the pith of youth, early writ,
then abandoned for richer grownup prose, untold striving.
Blessed moments seed the being of us all and lay down the root,
but ‘tis the flower of youth whence comes the fruit.