Lost Words

Today a mutiny upset my still.

Whipped up in winds of whirl and daily grind,

Seductive sunbeams and a content mill,

A dusty haze obscured my misty mind.

*

My palid page why did you grow whiter?

Like dusty sunlight in a squint of eye;

And why did songs of absence grow louder?

In gaping hole of hollow, no words lie.

*

Where were my words, my loyal witchy friends

that paint the petals of my stories’ blooms,

Dispersing sundrenched love when evening ends,

Like spiders weaving stories on their looms?

*

‘Maybe a summer breeze swept you away?’

My wily words rode on the thrill until

a pause for rest could no longer delay,

The gentle breeze enamoured, became still.

*

Along polished cobbles, did you fly free,

Tracing each crevice and each mismatched square;

Between the blades of grass vibrant with green,

graceful, fresh, dewy in veiled morning’s glare,

*

And circle the cenotaph with reverence,

Swoop down to stirring woodlands where elves dwell,

And sing soporific with bluebells dense,

As subdued, they hum their final farewell?

*

You etched your words on woody coats of trees,

Whilst bugs and beetles watched with reverent awe,

Busy being, in summer’s mindful ease,

Listening, watching, past dew prisms’ allure.

*

My summer words I went in search of you,

Inhaled the breeze, I hoped to catch a scent

of one lost, single, fragrant word or few.

I chanced upon a memory instead;

*

So many memories of summer tales when

I’d held my children’s soft and tiny palms.

A scent of lavender had painted then

a tranquil picture of my grandma’s charms;

*

She tended roses, rest’s a bokeh blur;

Organza image, soft pastel brushstroke;

Enough small detail to remember her;

Enough, her summer smile to still evoke.

*

I went in search of my lost words that day,

And walking, seeing, found them, and some more,

Recalling that they hadn’t lost their way.

Beguiled by birth they rushed through summer’s door.

*

His hand found mine, the surge of that first touch,

As ripple through each finger kindled my heart-string.

He said ‘You’re quiet, why say you not much?’

His eyes lit glint with sun rays’ diamond bling.

*

‘Confess to me that you have lost your words?’

While gold sphere shone diffused through speckled lens,

I spied them playful racing with some birds,

Then gliding gilded swooped our Yorkshire fens.

*

In heady summer stories our lips brushed;

He offered wildflowers scented with us.

As morning mist sighed sweet and blue sky blushed,

each letter now returned without a fuss.

*

‘New moon’ I said, ‘she always knows what’s best’.

Today’s a pause for magic words to rest.

. . . . .

A polite note to reader and any sonnet purist

Beware, a rebel sonnet this has been,

and rebels do defy the rules of verse

I should now cut and leave some words unseen,

then place my deviant words inside a herse.

*

A sonnet should have 14 lines I hear

But clearly I find numbers unruly

and my maths teacher warned me to steer clear

but, ever deviant, I remain yours truly.

. . .

Thank you so much for reading to the end. This poem was inspired by my husband asking one summer’s day, during a walk, whether I had lost my words because I was so quiet. I’d answered that no, my words were merely resting.