© Candice James, Poet Laureate Emerita
New Westminster, BC CANADA
The rain falls softly through the semi bare trees,
Whispering kisses into the stream,
As it pirouettes and eddies.
An unharnessed ballerina,
It dances and meanders
Beneath the run down wooden bridge
Where the lovers stand.
They stand on new ground tonight,
Bathed in sacred starlight,
This was never new ground to us
When we hung the new moon
Of another night higher than it ever hung before.
We wrestled the angels for a deeper touch of love;
For a stronger sense of truth;
For a truer sense of magic.
it slipped though our hands
Like sand; Gritty, abrasive, raw;,
Scarring, forever, the new ground
Never to be new to us again.
Tonight the rain falls in France
A little less softly through the barren trees,
Whispering laments into the stream,
As it struggles and breaks.
A fragile, antique mirror, it stumbles, and trips
Licking at the wet slick wooden bridge
Our teardrops still stand on.
Tonight, haloed in my loneliness,
I remember another night,
Once upon a time in France,
When we hung the new moon
Higher than it ever hung before
And I realize,
We’ll hang it nevermore.