how

o how do moons deceive the dusk one breath from gone to there … like tapestries with Guipure lace stained soft with blue … and bare? o how should I yet mourn the day with what blooms east-to-west … a vault with colored bib and stars bright jewels to grace its breast? o how does spindrift wend its way to span such breadths of tide … its toes a-dancing brine-top breaks while black, those depths abide? o how can hearts not blossom bright when childrens’ laughs abound … to heal the hopeless, broken souls through noise of sweetest sound? o how can promise, given when impassioned flesh thus flow’rs … hold strong against a yearn of years those truths that change devours? o how could she then bind me tight those oaths she spurned herself … hope’s garland left to gather dust shunned with’ring ‘pon her shelf? o how can simple words compel the coursings, deep our blood … or stain a page in wisdom, sage shape statues grand, from mud? o how can we keep children safe from monsters ‘neath their beds when evil’s face is commonplace masked false with love instead? and how should I find loves to fill these holes thrust thru my heart if that dear cost of what I’ve lost has ripped these bones … apart? o please … where should I start? Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, June 30, 2024