I measured time in heartbeats by seeking my life

while stumbling through the lives of others;

The ones I preyed would test, would dare

that my memories of you were imagined, and through.

For more than fifty long years my desperate theft

was their lives whose ties I craved would be true,

but they never knew–how could they, those few?

It was always ever you.

They became almost real, across decades, those someones

who I begged into my nights to rip my psalms of you away,

to pitch those prayers into cold grey winds of change

That would soar to the skies then fall,

and roar in pain, slashed by shards of rain,

Realized not as cries, but sighs; they survive, are alive–

my memories of you, not imagined, are true.

It was always ever you.

Just as dogwood blossoms fell
so passed the lilacs and my Spring
Shunning seasons, slipping into Winter sleep
icing and numbing my brain beyond care
beyond thought, past pain
To a limbo of sweet peace
with nothing everywhere
Just hints of my dead Spring
of fallen lilacs
and dogwood
Whose fragrance hung
above my head
so sweetly and so cruel.
Yet limbo is not a savage place
if you endure dead Springs
elusive scents
and perfumed lonliness.
The lilacs I told you were gone,
and the Spring I thought was dead–
had never truly withered away.
See what I hold, here in my hand?–
a gift for you,
only for you,
a bequest from limbo;
A gift from a frozen wasteland
retrieved from a wounded Spring–
Please accept this sacrifice
of a heart now returned
From a journey beyond care,
beyond thought, past pain
From a limbo of release;
my Spring was never there.
I offer you my true belief
in lilacs
and dogwood
and Spring.