Oh, Sometimes to Fully Feel you...

Oh, sometimes to fully feel you

I write you down

Trace afternoon for your color

Burgundy, gold, chestnut brown

For often you slip from my fingers

Before our dance is through

So I write you down, my precious

To remember you

I pluck the petal that brushes

The cheek ere it vagrantly slips

Into the silver forever

Of Past’s irretrievable crypts

Or else in the rush of your rain-song

I’ll snatch a tear from your eye

And press it into word pictures

Where dark is stealing the sky

I caught a feather of snowflake

Before it dissolved into naught

Etching your six-point perfection

Into meandering jot

You never scream for attention

Maybe that is why I love you

And feel compelled to frame pieces

Dripping and slipping from view

Eternal transience, ah moment

Moving across my today

Stripping swift years of its valor

While filling a life with your fray

Oh, sometimes to fully feel you

I grasp your ephemeral gown

And as you slide soft through my fingers

I linger and write you down

© Janet Martin