Longing lingers
like the smell of bonfire smoke
sealed in clothing and hair
Its the feeling for not forgotten moons
silently orbiting cloaked in midnight shadow
Wayward romances
with no tongue able to explain
why the open road suddenly narrowed and turned overgrown,
an impassable bramble of thorns
causing an undergrowth of unanswered questions
and muted yearnings

Hopeless Romantics,
how many heartbroken fill the ranks of the fallen legion
growing like spring corn to be cut down in Autumn,
giving their body to feed another,

Still,
a foolish day dreamer might escape
to the short rows awhile,
evading the sickle

Fire dancers born chasing flames,
honor bound to be burnt,
the skin bubbling and boiling sitting so close to the hearth,
yet these scars are precious demarcations of the heart,
where once possibility stretched endless before rosy eyes
like summer fields of wildflowers,

Wisdom knows that the wilderness must end somewhere,
although it waits to sprout beneath all,
yet there is sad magic in never looking around the bend,
not walking through the last stand of trees
to preserve the illusion of the forever forest