Adieux in Too Small Doses
Withered stalk,
teach me
your green days
when you were
full of juice
and laughter.
Dried fruit tastes sweet
preserving summer’s heat,
but melting flesh
that turns to ash…
my fleeting memory…
too much sorrow
is my fatigue,
and fog, palpable
like cotton, plugs my way
to bathing streams of tears.
Queenie
She Charlestoned on the tables,
faded in the shadows,
sang like a warbling cat and
flew scarlet-feathered against the moon.
Dreams gathered colors primary,
curled to a great dust spinning at her feet.
She plodded bat-eyed to fill petty necessities,
clinging dry nails to rocks,
wanted to burn pyre-like, her oven
of sorrows consumed--
to forget…
But a small nagging glimmer of pale light
pulled her to a startled staircase swathed in song
from dark violins, her eyes cut stone, loosed light,
she danced up the steps and down.
Everywhere a castle opened and extended
to Rhine waters, seen from a ship of dreams.
Images faded slowly, too slowly--
a waltz, a pavane, a quiet beat,
too slow to dance,
too slow to sing,
too slow to breathe
but slow enough to sleep.
Pat Egenberger, a retired teacher of English, foreign languages and art/technology electives, helped organize English/Language Arts Conferences at Asilomar for over twenty years both as the Chair of the Curriculum Study Commission of the Central California Teachers of English and as a member. Her interests include foreign languages, travel, art, and writing.
Withered stalk,
teach me
your green days
when you were
full of juice
and laughter.
Dried fruit tastes sweet
preserving summer’s heat,
but melting flesh
that turns to ash…
my fleeting memory…
too much sorrow
is my fatigue,
and fog, palpable
like cotton, plugs my way
to bathing streams of tears.
Queenie
She Charlestoned on the tables,
faded in the shadows,
sang like a warbling cat and
flew scarlet-feathered against the moon.
Dreams gathered colors primary,
curled to a great dust spinning at her feet.
She plodded bat-eyed to fill petty necessities,
clinging dry nails to rocks,
wanted to burn pyre-like, her oven
of sorrows consumed--
to forget…
But a small nagging glimmer of pale light
pulled her to a startled staircase swathed in song
from dark violins, her eyes cut stone, loosed light,
she danced up the steps and down.
Everywhere a castle opened and extended
to Rhine waters, seen from a ship of dreams.
Images faded slowly, too slowly--
a waltz, a pavane, a quiet beat,
too slow to dance,
too slow to sing,
too slow to breathe
but slow enough to sleep.
Pat Egenberger, a retired teacher of English, foreign languages and art/technology electives, helped organize English/Language Arts Conferences at Asilomar for over twenty years both as the Chair of the Curriculum Study Commission of the Central California Teachers of English and as a member. Her interests include foreign languages, travel, art, and writing.