In that first fraction of vermilion,
while the fresh-clipped sweetness
of meadow grass is strained
through steel screens, I find you
next to me, entwined in soft, pale linen.

There is comfort in the early morning breeze,
not revealed in the sheer peacefulness
that is this moment, or the essence
of the air, but in the coolness of your skin
and the poise of your whispering slumber.

I find you everywhere in this room,
suspended on chatelaines and lorgnettes,
in bits and locks of your hair received
by porcelain, in hallmarks of lions
and symbols of style, manufactured
into tokens of forsaken obsolecence.

Here, in a place no words can escape
and no mortal can own, I am kindly kept,
free from the madness of unmerciful men
blind to the beauty and bounty of love.

In the midst of refections from sterling lockets casting
crystal ballerinas in plays of pirouetting sunshine,
I ponder the thought of pure gracefulness as I drift
back to sleep, wondering if I will ever wake.

................................................................................

The Prairie Widow's Waltz
By Reed Charles

She dances jigs beneath the harvest moon
and twirls a gingham dress around our hearts.
She knows her time for laughter will be soon
but never feels the beauty she imparts.

Up against the wall a crowd is captured
and swept away within her pleated folds.
Even wallflowers become enraptured
contained within the charm her dancing holds.

Her face is always lifeless and muted
without a mate to share her promenades.
Her destiny is commonly reputed
among the county’s most precocious maids.

Then fiddling with the fiddler as she passes,
the band that helps to keep her on her feet,
once again she’s fogged the caller’s glasses;
he’s eighty-two but still can feel her heat

and no one dares to offer her a spin;
the locals are apprised of her remorse.
The old guard calls her loneliness a sin,
a twist of fate that blew her life off course.

So now she sails alone in fantasies
and floats on wings supported by the chords,
as music moves her through life with its breeze
in silence she is pining for fjords.