Resolution

I said a solemn prayer
and shed an anguished tear
I was the only mourner
at the dying of the year.


I gathered all the half done plans
bound them with twine
and placed them in a casket
at eleven fifty nine.

I took a midnight vow
with the resolve of a nun
to renounce all those dreams
in the year to come.



It was easy to imagine
that such a feat could be done
but when I lay down to sleep
it was already broken at twelve o' one.

Outside the lines

It is OK to color outside the lines.....gulp....really it is....

Watch Johanna Basford's Vlog where she explains the 'lines are just a suggestion' and learn how to turn accident into intention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6rd7PDAMJY

In progress....

Some things cannot be tamed

Tiger lilies never grow
in such abandon in my garden
the way they do beside the road
Some things cannot be tamed
and never thrive unless forgotten

A wild heart may throb and strain
when all bonds feel like weights
until it bursts and sunders chains
breaking walls to escape
then light as air flies away

A pen may etch black on white
While voices warn do not say
and threaten do not write
But what's in my head sears my brain
until scratched out on the page.

Playing with a Rainbow

I held a rainbow in my hand
Every color at my command
Hard it was just to choose
the next shade, the perfect hue

In my head I had a plan
so much more grand
than I ever could confer
with my pencil to the paper

Some lines were crossed
and patterns were lost
and mistakes more than a few
Forgiven all, a vision come true.

Paris

What a pretty bracelet.
Is it vintage, she said.
She touched my cheek,
You are aristocrat, she said.
I shake my head with a smile.
I have my mother's bones, I said.
I picture you in Paris,
You should go there, she said.

Lovely words to ponder on,
But doubt fills my head.
If moonlight was gemstones,
And my father was a prince,
I would be Queen of all I own.
But moonbeams are only air,
And my father is a pauper,
And I am just a mare.

The Courtship of Autumn

Woo me not dear boy,

With the pale hues of Spring.

In those faded pinks,

Nowhere would I be seen,

Nor in muted yellow and washed out greens.

They are but premonitions 

of what is yet to be.

Do not court me good Sir,

with the rose reds of June

Nor the strident blues

of a hot July noon.

Long let them bake in the summer sun,

They are but harbingers

of what is yet to come.

Pursue me in the fall, my lord,

when I kneel in grass of emerald green.

Lay your cloak of molten gold

and your ruby heart at my feet

and be caught in the amber of my soul.

Vows exchanged 'neath sapphire skys

are worthy of jesters and of kings.

Yours, I will be, until the year falls away,

And then I must change my gown.

For the harlequin hues will fade to rust

And all color is one in the waning day,

nothing left but shades of brown.

Then dressed in silver, white and grey

I will put on Winter's crown.