A poem for my great-grandmother Hazel Applebee from England. She was the family romantic who grew up in England and loved to tell stories about castles.
Stone Roses
We stand
West of a whisper
Close to falling in love.
Twin souls
Bending over balconies
Watching
Stone roses blooming
In moon smoke.
We meet
The bitter and the sweet
At midnight
Lighting candles in the chapel
For the breath of fire
Born free
In the hanging space
Of saints.
The Merlot
On our lips,
As red as the berry
Before death,
Betrays us
As the heart
Betrays us
To love
Who ever
We must.
Passion
Ties charms
To rain drops
Looking for a chalice
Finding
The cottage teapot
Cracked brown with the age
Of our tears.
The magic invisible.
We are
Part of the harvest
That stains the fields
We plough.
We never
Surrendered
To the black sheep
Passing through
Our separate lives.
Years from now
We will walk
Through honeyed dust
Collecting seeds
Of a memory,
Weary
Of a path grown short
And shadows
Gone blind.
Crossing over
The silent fields
We look for
Grape vines
Finding
Spring weeds
Growing up fences
And black sheep
Passing by
Stone roses.
Poetry on Wings 