regretfully

i walked your fields for

twenty seven seasons

you were the "scarlet

stripes with lace ecru"

summer saunters now

slipping suns...vacant

blooms...

regretfully...i never thought

to ask your name.

diamond beak duet

i’d no idea what

they were singing

but i know that

sky and sea felt

compelled enough

to break composure

...leaning in to listen

i’d wait all summer

long for the refrain..but

they never rose those

notes again.

sweeping

he said there’d be more come

the morning...that they multiply

in the overnight, even more so

when autumn grabs green off the

sycamore...i sweep into the gutter

leaves, branches, berries...

shedding the springtime at august’s

inception, as i’m blindsiding winter.

one last time

i wish i’d known

you were scheduled

to sojourn...i’d have

flowered my branch

one last time for you.

the relevance of the irrelevant

barely a woosh of the wind

to initiate the repossession

of her dangling few

gutted out, empty leaved

portending the plaguing of storms

soon on the rising

a garland of green leaf reminder

filigrees sturdily round the bottom

last fifth of her legacy...

dispelling illusions of death

as grey clouds bear down

revealing her perpetual elegance

transcending the carnal pretension

that she is old and irrelevant

softly, it rains on the sycamore.

© Emalisa Rose

Bio: Emalisa Rose is a poet, dollmaker, craft artist. She volunteers in animal rescue. Living by a beach town provides much of the inspiration for her art. She works in a NY middle school as a lunch lady, which also provides a lot of humor and insight into the human condition, fueling her compassion and her art.