Poem: Vitality

 The wine of life

sparkled in her eyes 

in zest

and joy 

and vintage vitality ; 

Beneath a blooming bough she bent for 

the sweet sugar plums that were proffered; 

And I saw, too, reflected there

in those eyes

the energy she drew

from Nature and love and all that was new;

Sweet dreams, awash in moonlight, 

Pathways of stars

that twinkled in the night,

White doves that cooed

songs of springs yet to come--

white-frosted winters, sultry summers,

the sheer sensuous exuberation, 

light flotation on fairy wings,

of the mad musicality of the mind

under the solstice sun,

by gushing rills and fantasies of garland flowers; 

Thus Nature spoke to her, in all its eloquence--

the waltzing wind led her round and round 

the grassy knoll

and old, hoar trees swayed in time, 

and hummed a tune or two; 

The momentary magic 

I thus beheld 

enthralled me

and it seemed, for a second, 

as if all the joy, all the vitality ever, 

had here their first and last suspiration drawn--

In a child's carefree abandon.  

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from The Anvil of Dreams 1995