The One You Called Samhain

by P D Lyons

What if I could tell you about the day?  First real snow.

Crows, huddled in the grey fingers of that tree watching

as if waiting for something I didn’t have to give.

What if I could tell you, that winter poem you wrote,

I’ve hung copies of it on the bedroom wall,

on the back door, the horses’ stalls,

and along the straight wire fluttering like little white flags

between the paddock and the pasture?

Oh, but if you were here I know what you would say, that you never

 liked it anyway, kept it only out of loyalty, that poem you tried to write

  for me reads now like an accidental prophecy, the one you called

Samhain

Someday I will return to you there on the meadow hill

where crisp wind turns your hair to faerie knots.

I will return. Meeting you there. Once more take you in my arms

have you nestle against my shoulder whisper kisses against my neck.

Wrap you in my long green coat turning up the collar to the wind.

                           And it will be the crows of October hesitant

from rummaging the old corn rows as if knowing your sigh.

and I too my dear the need in me rises, escapes as sound

perhaps heard by red deer who for a moment raise their heads from sunset grazing.

                           There where I first loved you one night how long ago?

Moon full lit your body as if you were of warm alabaster liquid made.

In soft slate grey your shadow face, your O shaped mouth,

your turned-up eyes white reflecting silver from the moon as you rose above me.

                        Somewhere in that night, at some timeless point I woke

dew had covered us, stood like tiny diamonds on my coat,

stars so clear I could hear their sparkling as if in one long held breath.

While you, in your sleep were smiling and because I thought,

compared to this I had never known true beauty,

I cried in that quiet time between the worlds.

                                I will return to you. I will once more take you in my arms

have you nestle against my shoulder whisper kisses against my neck.

Wrap you in my long green coat turn up the collar to the wind –

then hold you away, just enough to look you in the eyes

and at the sight of your crooked little smile, I will laugh,

and you will know  I have returned.

~

But now that you are really here. What can I say?

Tell you about the day? First real snow.

Crows, huddled in the grey fingers of that tree

watching, as if waiting, for something I didn’t have to give…

BIO: PD Lyons was born and raised in the USA Since 1998 has resided in Ireland. Lyons received the Mattatuck College Award for Outstanding Achievement in Poetry and a Bachelor of Science with honours from Teikyo Post University Connecticut (USA). The work of PD Lyons has appeared in many formats throughout the world.