THE LONELY SURVIVE

How lonely people cling to past,
Grasp for Winter’s frosty dale,
That some lived life will always last,
Lest tomorrow's Summers dim and pale.
How private fear of fraying string,
That links the heart to faded joy,
Eludes the claim of coming Spring,
Lest what remains will be destroyed.
This poet writes such mimic verse,
To retain the words he no longer has,
To repeat his marriage in a hearse,
Lest time should see his feeling pass.
Yet I am faced with doctored time,
The scalpel cuts through fraying vine.

2
For I must view in spite of me,
The new born blossoms on the bough,
The new born orchids on the tree,
Fresh soil turned by natures plow.
For Spring is here and my retreat,
Is overgrown by its sweet bloom,
That all in all must soon defeat,
The guardian of my Winter gloom,
So now the horizon streaked with red,
Thaws the snow of distant peaks,
Warms the sheets of Earth's chill bed,
By melting Winter's fading streaks.
Then I'll be cured, by God's design,
Solved by his sketch of precious time.
3
Hark! How the birds sing with glee,
From joyful wood alive in bloom,
As before such choir the Winters flee,
Bourne on the shaft of witches' broom.
See how the flowers *gay and fair,
Swoon in the Sun with tranquil pose,
And *gay that they are thriving there,
My blossoms bloom that I am those.
Ah! Lost regret; respect returned,
And failure dies; over this I've won,
No greater lesson have I learned,
Than to know life lives though love is gone.
Sweet Lady fair by your cruel hand,
I've learned to grow a rose in sand.

(*gay – pertaining to the meaning …’happy’.)

©22 March 75 Colin F Jones