The flip side

I have loved you
- Tenderly
- Passionately
- Deeply
- Completely
- Without reserve
- Worshipfully

I have hated you because you made me.
I have hated with the same passion as I have loved.

Today is our only canvas.
We paint as if with colors
Chosen tenderly, carefully.

Love 'change.'
It can give you
A whole new perspective.

I have laughed
- With you
- At you
- For you
- Because of you

I have laughed
- Out of love for you
- Under you
- Over you
- Despite of you

Oh my love, our love was no joke.

This lily-rose-faced one, 'er
With lips set in a romantic pout,
And hips like a blooming flower
Opening.  Fresh with dew
Her alabaster skin glistens,
A slender neck begging for pearls,
Her long black hair is unbound.

With coverings of arabesque cloth
And tassels of gold in their richness,
Her sumptuousness abounds
Everywhere, on tables, lamps, beds.
She is the freest of free spirits set to fly
At a breath's moment, you will find,
Should you be able to be clear-eyed.

Will she stay for long enough? No!
She has already spread her wings to fly.
Though through life, she only glides.
But do not blink for a second an eye,
You will find that butterflies live brief
Lives.  And they and their beauty
Eventually, they die much too soon.

Vestigium, a Latin word meaning "footprint, trace."

Day hides behind a curtain of white,
So hides the night, the fading night.
The fog that descended before the light
Moves and curls around the lights brightly.
The earth is swallowing the memory of the sky.

With pressed-tight lips and dreary-eyed
I am staring into the obscure day, forming
As the fog leaves a footprint, a trace
On objects and roofs, then slyly drips down.
Its soft coolness covers me, as well.

Where is the context of things barely seen?
An ephemeral blanket closes in on us all.
Unsettling until the day is elucidating sight.
The lights all have halos like a holy thing.
At least it gives each one a certain clarification.

Still, the fog is closing in.

Large white wings flapping
Carried the creature away
Into the bright mist of morning.

A thousand feelings rush in.
Summer rains have faded
To autumn, then winter.

A thousand feelings
Flung like cards being played
Some hard, some soft.

Was the bird soft or hard?
The mist was soft hanging there.
The morning, like many, was hard.

The weight of things, so like life.

There they go
The true ladies of the night

Walking the streets
In a protective routine

I hear them laughing
I hear the banter

Out there, down below
My balcony

In the dark of night
Before the dawn's light

They stroll circulative
Calling out occasionally

What wicked deed
Is their goal in darkness

They are the walkers
In our retirement village