“…in a lifetime, when do a child’s dreams ignite?
Once-in-a-lifetime -- How compact
How now-or-never and I the little fatalist
too literal, missed the specialness
heard it only as a door slammed shut
a visitor left on the welcome mat
open-mouthed. Or felt the rush of sash
windows, in free fall, when the cord frays
Can't you hear its all about luck and loss?
I cried over all lost things. My grey wool gloves
missing that winter of '59. Saint Anthony
recovering them in June, Too late -
the moment passed. Hope so readily bruised
when faith, its foundation, fractures, falling
like hail on psyche, mawkish and make-believe
But because nothing is just once and forever
(except birth, and then death of course)
I grew into a lifespan of unfastened doors
windows held up too, on outlooks
often w i d e r
fresher
clearer
than I could ever hope for
and in my dressing table drawer
(where Saint Anthony hears the forager's prayer)
there are winter gloves galore
though none are grey.
For Kim’s Poetics prompt “Once in a lifetime” in which we use that as an opening line for a 1st person poem. The epigraph is from Arthur Fze “Forage”
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