.
.
.
.
.
Blue-purple shadow wait,
delay your sidelong skitter
to the feast,
your appetite abate,
have patience till life quits
and breath is ceased

Yet tarry here with me
until this cage
e'er void of air grows calm,
and whisks my spirit free
from earthen rage,
hate, prejudice and qualms
(vales so shadowy,
guideless paths,
too late the peaceful stag-
ing of that psalm)*

The patient palate's prize
will all the more be
sated once tis served,
as caviar these eyes
long steeped in seasons
di(e)late soon hors d'oeuvres

Eyes scrutinized what taste
that good chef Winter
mirrored the moonshine,
his necessary baste
a gelid dint
the saddened world turns brine**

They've glazed in Autumn's view,
that savory gratin,
earth's golden crust,
leaves thickening the roux,
cilantro orange dis-
bursed among the rusts

Simmered Summer spied
through eyes, bedeviled eggs
warm comfort's nest,
most often there love sighed
tabascoed legs
and fares of zesty breasts

And stewed in Spring's au Jus,
its succulence, its urges,
yes its lusts,
now here at my adieu
your "Quaaaas" become the dirges
at life's dusk

Long braised in saffron light
and cloved in love more often
than would seem,
at times though unrequite
reduced from 'mares
death's softening in dreams

Now fades all visions seen
I go to pay that lofty
kitchen compliments,
this skull, now your tureen,
you'll no doubt quaff
enjoying more its sweet contents

That I'd not die alone
but in the pathos of
your patience spent,
I'll now my sins atone
and rue the wasted
light of life
to dark torment

Proof remains in your footholds,
the well earned etchings
of those wrinkled lines,***
unseen until day grows cold
life was often fetching
and that I've been blind
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.Well, stretch a bit and imagine a man dying in the wilderness, his only witness a crow/raven. To keep the bird from taking his eyes before demise yet not wanting to die alone he makes juicier the prospective meal by explaining its contents and in doing so realizes that he didn't appreciate life and saw too much its dark.
*Psalm 23 that of green pastures and leadeth paths and still waters, things promised in Judeo/Christian beliefs and too often a peace not known in life.
**melting snow, its roll to the salty seas
***laugh lines/crows feet
Photo credit Kathryn Topp

[This message has been edited by RSWells (04-17-2003 06:41 PM).]

~Somewhere in my heart I'm always
dancing with you in the summer rain~

..without surrender, be on good terms with all persons..
        "Desiderata"

You're the best I've ever felt ...
it's so wrong not to be with you.
It's getting harder to stay away,
it stops my heart just to be with you.

SH

"And it was at that age...Poetry arrived in search of me...And something started in my soul."
Pablo Neruda