How Many Times

How Many Times


how many times
I have passed this way
only to turn and say
they could be brown
gold, blue or gray today

as yesterday when we
met and I forgot to look
and took what came
effortlessly without thought
to when it is no more

what vibrant memory
shone in the sun’s
refraction on golden strands
strung in luxurious folds
streaming light between

partitions of motion and
stillness here to there and
back again, a secondary
amendment to loss
accumulating currency

with each year
spent in vague
imaginings, false hopes
holding sway against
spurious pursuits best

left unattended in
face of loss
never to be regained
as youth’s splendor
in the sun is

left to wither in time’s
sequential array of
what remains unseen
ignored in what’s
worth remembering

in the gray and black
chiaroscuro mosaic of
shapes giving life in
imitation of movement
between us in

imagined moments
hovering in distant auras
drawn on to a glass
half full of the deceptive
elixir of daydreams

languishing in idle
afternoon meanderings
silent on the tongue
as the lament of time
sounds in the timbre
of perseverance