(Saying Goodbye) On The New Navaho Plains (at a Tribal Gathering)
she was clothed in the romance of Keates with Byronic swirls shifting within the folds of her skirt she sat on the ground in Shakespearian attitude
opened a book
and read perfumed verses the story of a kiss unfolded into life (the past
the dead past always grows
gilt edged and glorious)
he watched her words floating off into the green landscape
and head over heels
over heels
over heels down rolling hills
into the swoon of long grasses
tinged paradise blue with summer’s glee
the essence of sun heat
trawled the valleys like a mist rode the banks and crept over stones
it was the babble of the brook that told him of her eyes falling into a saddening gaze
at first he couldn’t understand why befuddled then he caught sight of a tiny reflection like a kick of soot an insignificant smudge of a cloud that was drifting lonely in the big sky
he prayed that it would wander aimlessly into the arc of the horizon and then fall off the edge of the world but instinctively he knew that from now on it would always be there
hanging
over him
like an exclamation mark
for in one momentous era of time he’s basking in sunshine the next he’s suddenly drenched in a shower of symbolic rain
that was the moment when summer was over
he felt it instantly
as if a season could have a sell-by date
warmth expired
what still mystified him was a group of Navaho Indians performing a rain dance in the middle of the English countryside
he could hear drums beating
feel the pulse of spirits vibrating
the shaman’s chants resonating
it grew in intensity
louder
faster
twisting and curling around his spine every muscle twitching
contracting
locked graphospasm
and every nerve-ending blossomed as a dream catcher
and every dream caught became tear in the transition of demise
as he was attempting to interpret this apparition
she had walked barefoot
treading on the daisies
brushing hours off of dandelion clocks
leaving him as an isolated silhouette against the glare.
* Paul Levy is a regular IS&T contributor and publisher of the Clueless Collective spoof poetry site that aims to be “a
spoof of some of the more, shall we say arty and pretentious, literary
magazines”. (And he turns up in the freezing cold to attend my poetry readings so he's an all-time good guy in my book – Charles Christian) www.cluelesscollective.co.uk
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