Monday night's alright for (re)writing old love poems.

Surely you must know


Sometimes when I'm with you,
I feel blissfully and successfully young
as if each passing moment contains
unending purpose and possibility.

But right now, I feel strangely old.
I start to notice things,
like the veins in my hands as I write this.
One day, when I wasn't looking,
they became my mother's hands.

And it's alright if you prefer
Bob Dylan to Dylan Thomas,
or if neither move your old soul,
as long as you keep drinking
dark roast coffee and india pale ale.

For years I've been dying to ask you,
where do malls keep their Christmas trees
during the rest of the year
and
do William and Penny Lane fall in love again
when she comes back from Morocco
and
can you see what I can't say when you look
into the hazel swells of my eyes?

If you'd give me the old college try,
like John says, I'd walk down to the end with you,
be it where the evergreen trees quietly live,
or the deadly deserts of a forgotten Morocco,
or the sacred place behind my longing eyes.

With any luck,
my daughter will have
her grandmother's hands
and your sense of rhythm.



copyright 2012
maura clement