JENNIFER

JENNIFER

She was a poem of many voices,
And spoke to me as we walked through the courtyard,
For I sang to her in many tones.

The songs live on, in some passionate revival.
She stands within the portrait and smiles at my broken life
And looks upon the shattered dreams of tomorrow,
As together we remember a past of gleaming sunlight.

Jennifer, fall into my arms,
Though the snowfall of time has mellowed your golden hair
And blossomed it to a lovely gray.
Come back to the wonderland of our embrace.

The fireside mission beckons us to follow
And urges us on to a shrieking paradise.
I know that time has twisted your mind
Into pails of sloshing confusion.
Our wounds are fresh and open as we roam the world.
Bleed on me your lonely tales,
The dark room with the shades drawn,
The black and dismal rocking chair,
The bed and the strait-jacket.

Bleed on me.
I too have screamed into the emptiness.
I too have felt the fever.
I have been crazy, too, and locked away.
But I can remember a spring day and an autumn brisk,
When you and I sang amid the flowering willows,
And lent smiles to the fading daffodils,
And watched the world fall dead upon its self-constructed battlefields.
Do you remember our victory, when we were champions,
And you wore flowers on your head and a smile upon your shining face?

Wheelchairs and empty pocketbooks are now home for you.
But my quivering voice calls out your name in agonizing shades.
I am an old, old man alone.
The flowers in your hair have wilted and died,
And the ecstasy of meeting you again ignites my mind.
Tomorrow could be the day for you and me, when time calls us to leave.

I picked up the morning paper and saw your death notice,
An obituary in black.
And I could not hold back the tears which fell like pools to drown me.
I tried so hard to stay at peace, but all I could see was your empty stone house,
And all I could hear was the hideous creaking of your rocking chair.
Back and forth, back and forth, the chair creaked through the darkness.

Jennifer, fall into my arms, though the snowfall of time
Has mellowed your golden hair.

I bleed on you my lonely tales.
The coffin is lowered,
The flowers at your head are alive and swaying in the breeze.

I remember our stunning victories, when we were still the champions,
And the tears fall freely, for Jenny, how I loved you.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 1980
Revised Copyright 2010
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED