They clipped your wings as you stood center stage
Holding a pen and a silver-budded book
Of wondrous life aglow in a darkling age
Inspired by a ghostly muse who undertook
To guide your light plume steps to azure doors
To open them soft with your winged key
To build leafy bowers for knightly matches
To fill sultry olive days with Spenser’s lores
Or hear the hymnal mysteries of the sea
And watch stars shine above the beechen thatches
Blue crystal air got caught in your lungs
Your wispy curls glow russet in the sun
Your feet step light on the ladder between rungs
Your phantom mind at peace paused in its run
Your soul gently dips in pearl rose dew
Warm dreams are spun from threads of bluebell tulle
You feel them rise from sugar glaze on shepherd seas
Or hear the moon’s blanched songs begun anew
Amid the hazel kernels ripening full
And open soft foam doors with golden keys
And yet they left you standing on the stage
Dry violets lie scattered at your feet
Cathedral heart is freed from the world’s cage
It blesses its existence beat by beat
Your proud head is bent in soft acceptance
Of twilight fate you chose not for yourself
Of restless travels between windswept shores
Of quests for beauty mingled with repentance
For losing love worth more than fame or wealth
For losing life in elfin vale forlorn
You saw bluebells emerging from the ground
You heard nightingales pour their souls in song
Of life on wings and summer’s silver sound
Of whitewashed skies and woodland paths dream long
Your soul has skipped through snow star labyrinths
In search of papyrus truth and spectral hope
Of velvet stones in depths of wooded rivers
Or quiet joy in cream spike buds of hyacinths
Of gentle days on plush blueberry slopes
And violets rocked light by zephyr’s quivers
You spread the silver dust of ancient dreams
You reached for mango rays of blazing suns
You watched driftwood afloat in cyan dark streams
As rose sand caressed your feet in gentle runs
You stood beneath the world’s light highland shingles
Next to a hidden grot of crystal treasures
Crested all around by sapphire arcs
You watched how day with neon evening mingles
And enjoyed many dainty summer pleasures
Listening to triple dawn’s songs of the larks
They clipped your wings but you still reached for heaven
Your sun drop pen left gold marks on the page
You longed for life, love and a blissful haven
Like a sky-searching eagle in a cage
You looked for beauty on this turquoise earth
And heard the mellow peals of bashful bluebells
Or feathered Poesy’s gray paper wing
You reached for human kindness, not its dearth
Your spirit saddled winds from pickled seashells
As pigeon-soul broke free from this world’s ring