Annette
A morning coincidence, to school we laughed and skipped -
A cloud that drifted through the sky, from my mind it slipped.
For many years and then forever, I would forget
That happy race with the breezy, carefree Annette.
Sleepwalking through my life, I was ready to awake,
Never much a part of it, but ready to partake,
I sensed her presence near me, but she remained unmet.
How to find a way to talk to the luminous Annette?
Screwing up my courage, for I was a little green,
Pretending to be tough and wise for all the things I’d seen,
“Bogie” would have been my most ill-chosen sobriquet.
How to really get to know the beautiful Annette?
I forged on to know her, not being very gallant.
She was forbearing, so it did not require talent.
As fortunate a man or boy I was - though still yet -
I badly needed to kiss the rapturous Annette.
This quest would continue, as one night’s attempted kiss,
Fatefully, was less a prince’s hit and more a froggie’s miss.
Plain as day, I’d be croaking solo - never a duet
With what was to me, the unattainable Annette.
How could this be? Some lessons are very hard to learn.
Love takes two, there’s no guarantee your love she’ll return.
Life’s not a Hollywood movie - this much I regret -
No more scripted ending with the judicious Annette.
Like many of life’s travails, this kind we must accept.
The day the teacher gave this lesson, I must have overslept,
Or I would have let time do its magic, and forget,
not thinking much about the unforgettable Annette.
I tortured myself over why I failed to win her.
Was it because in life I was only a beginner?
Perhaps I lacked maturity - some things I didn’t get.
If I had been a nicer guy, I might have won Annette.
I tried to deny, explain, and understand my defeat.
In every way, just like a hamster wheel might repeat.
Through life these thoughts would to my sanity pose a threat -
I sometimes wondered if there ever was an Annette.
The blessed instant I died, I lost an ounce of care,
But of its escape, being dead, I was unaware.
The sad day of my funeral, everyone got wet,
Except one with an umbrella, well-prepared Annette.
Words heard by a passing bird as through the sky it traversed,
“The day we raced to school to see who would get their first -
Why’d you trip me and skin my knee just to win a bet?
Rest in peace, dear departed, yours, in memory, Annette.”
Copyright ©
David Crandall
|