~~~
Not far it was from Heaven
'twas the very month of June
and the sweetest birds were singing
when first
she stole my tune ...

As if from out the bluest sky
an angel came to call

Quintessence of Irish memory
with braids as I recall

The golden sun's shine o'er the dew
reflected
through her eyes

Like flowers
from a woodland path
her smile just mesmerized

With dancer's wings she stepped along
my song held in her arms

My blue eyes dreaming
hypnotized
now locked within her charms

"Good day kind sir"
sweet melody
embraced my very soul

With butterflies and rubber thighs
my tongue
I swear it swoll

My heart stood tall
to brace my jaw
an lock the molars tight

The best I managed
was a smile
my voice had taken flight

Pausing
she locked her gaze to mine
reached out to my lapel

Placed a fragrant flower there
bent close
to share its smell

The moment
stole my breath from me

I gazed in pure delight

Enchanted with her beauty rare
awoke
to silent night
~~~

In this moment, it seems, a spirit has found us
Alone or together our strength is boundless
Our thoughts reach further than one has ever dared to go on foot
A flurry of hopes; both old and new flicker before us
Our light floats in a sea of faith
As read by the virtuous figure “joy and courage go hand in hand”
Thus creating a heartened happiness.
We find laughter in one another
Adversity turns its face to the shadows and hides from safety
Once we have returned
A free spirit is left behind
It waits to be rediscovered
By she who yearns so passionately for it
But it daren’t make a sound
It remains yet unfound

"That which is not attractive therefore must be repulsive."

D. Clare

Think of this concept as the orthodox saying to the vernacular...beauty is in the eye of the beer holder!

Though darkness now itself abounds
Many dreams can still be found
For every moment spent in sorrow
Possibilities ring full tomorrow
I may be a human being
Who also soars on golden wing
In a heart once filled with song
Fear can never last too long.

There would be my small world
but with your so big embrace
my little heart
into bigger yours
my thin breath
into specious yours
my whispered words
as the gap between missing yours
I hope to be cuddled
by your silence
There would be my small world
but with the harmony of your heart

A black maid enters.
Cowed, inarticulate,
she makes obeisance to her mistress,
our erstwhile heroine.

She is given a menial task
in a perfunctory fashion,
and you thrill at this splash
of historical colour.

But her mistress's command
is irrelevant.  She is fully engaged
with two vital functions
with which I have entrusted her.

The first: she has bathed our heroes
in moral ambiguity -
she is a shortcut to complexity,
rendering the important characters
doubly fascinating,
bathing them in pathos.

The second: she has pleased you
as you recognise your own outrage:
"Why must she be black?
Why can't they treat her better?
Don't we live in finer times, you and I?"
And a happy reader
is a reader who will proceed,
enlivened, vindicated, affirmed.

And thus freshly enslaved,
she returns
to the sculleries of my imagination
as we press nobly on.