A Poem of Love by Dan Essman

A new poem from friend and poet Dan Essman of Willits, California.  Dan sends these gems from time to time, when the spirit moves him. 

a poem of love

any afternoon in the house of december
where janey lived and janey played
where...
paper flowers tumbled on the hardwood floor
playful roses pale pink trembling in the december light
there we were...there we stayed, and there we prayed
for...
broken hearts, failed friends, the cancer dead
their names like light bright bells
summery names remembered to defy the winter cold
names we scrawled on the listless obituary wallpaper
our own kind sad graffiti..
antique names pealing from that mildewed wall
in our ancient playhouse
names that ring and ring among the trembling rosebuds
in our prayers for the faded and the dead,
how hard we prayed for the failed and fallen blossoms
the long gone he who loved the she
and that pale she, my dear gone jane, who loved the he
our own sprung lives cut sudden, cut short
i remember how the whispered names sliced the silence
and the winter light and empty playhouse rooms
like the passage of a scimitar through dust motes
prayers to our small family vaguely revivified
prayers in whispers to an ark without salvation
on which the lovers never sailed
not in flesh, not ghosts, not memories
we named them then, and now, and ever again
our lost family of the december dead.

daniel essman march 28, 2016