A sweet repose of soul
In summer-studded evening;
The calm before the storm,
The pause before believing.

Will he laugh like raw honey,
With fine, flaxen hair?
As calm as the willow,
All noble and fair?

Or maybe a tempest,
Long-loved by the moon;
The songs we composed,
Revealed to us soon.

Summer’s earth lets spring forth a new blade,
Just as she sustains a great tree.
Her rains made aplenty by His guiding hand,
The joy of Creation, e’er plain to see.

His fragile heartbeat entwined with her breath,
The babe in the womb is dependent on one,
As the tide seeks its path by the light of the moon,
As a young flower yearns for the sun.

What a blessing it is to be host to His love,
To feel movements drawn out by His hand,
The promise of new life within me;
A mustard seed hewn from the sand.

Atlantis in the blue
Gleaming, lost and sunken,
Like starlets in the pictures,
Their opulence forgotten.

Did lovers twirl in chambers dim,
Their heady romance blooming?
Did writers pen their tale of yore,
While death was surely looming?

Another side to every coin,
It's golden age gone by,
For everything- a season,
A time to live and die.

I.
I think on the moon in a dark, starless sky
Does she still remember who beneath her cried
On an evening like this, with twilight on high;
The tears shed hundreds of years ago
Before the great war, before the cock crowed?
Do the clouds hold memories of our love,
Of those who embraced with them up above,
Of medieval lovers, who history forgot
Does the sunset recall the future they sought? 
How wondrous a thought that the dusk and the dawn,
Hold sights we can share with those dead and gone.

II.
I spy in the mirror a nose I despise,
On a sallow-skinned woman with overgrown eyes
Both her waist and her figure not quite the right size-
Though my harrowing monologue comes to an end,
When I stop to peer through an old hand-me-down lens,
Where an ocular tour through my own family tree
Reveals branches of women who smile back at me.
One with teeth not quite white and pale yellow skin,
One who snorts when she laughs, and her arms paper-thin
Hold a babe at her hip and her love by her side
My own insecurity was once their great pride.

Loneliness rises like bile in my throat
As I take to heart that solemn decree,
Their inside jokes and bouts of laughter
Never, it seems, are they meant for me. 

The treasure of girlhood, so distant it seems,
When friendship was sure as pinkies that swear,
A promise forged clear with nothing amiss,
Before we were caught in complacency's snare.

Visions of welcome play through my mind's eye,
Where a best friend is waiting to skip hand in hand,
To listen to secrets and whisper at dusk,
Our memories count more than there are grains of sand.

I hear the whole party as it echoes above,
As if I'm in the cellar and they're in a cloud,
Frantically trying to pick the right lock,
Lest I be swallowed by anonymity's shroud.

I scream and I shout but no one can hear
And I'm yearning to catch just a glimpse of my fate
When the lock finally gives, but I've struggled in vain
As a single unoccupied chair there awaits.

Kaleidoscope pictures that never will be,
Swim behind eyes that no longer see;
In each: a miniature what, where and when,
An infinitesimal “what could’ve been.”

If I’d not been lazy, anxious, or shy,
If I’d only dared to dream up one more “why?”
Will my long reverie prove only pretend?
Will I leave behind nothing but dust in the wind?

A moment’s repose I never can buy,
Nor can I escape through the close of my eye,
For kaleidoscope visions dance through my head,
They taunt me in turquoise, violet and red.

As I fall down the rabbit-hole,
Impending doom
Follows me into a dimly-lit room,
And there I am merely a brick in the wall,
My life’s greatest fear to which I am thrall.