Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THREE LEIS FOR A PARTING, by WALKER WINSLOW


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THREE LEIS FOR A PARTING, by                    
First Line: Not of the flower of ginger, nor of gardenias
Last Line: Pigments the pastels of our waters at dusk.
Subject(s): Butterflies; Insects; Bugs


Not of the flower of ginger, nor of gardenias,
are these leis I give you;
not of bush, nor tree, nor vine.
True, the fingers of dark-skinned,
soft-voiced natives have strung them ...
In me, always, dark soft fingers are stringing;
and dark voices tumbling over the garden
are a cataract of sound, touch and odor
that is memory.
These are strange and rooted leis I offer,
and, tethered to my heart, is the cereus
I would have bloom
in the night of our separation.

The fallen petals of the sun
trailed across the waters,
and the petals of the moon
strewn in your wake,
shall mark in the days and years to come
not so much the path of your passing,
as the aisle prepared for your return.

You will be walking through a city's dusk,
and snow in the neon
shall be the falling
of hau and hibiscus at day's end.
As you walk, remember
that light will assume light
and that it will touch us here;
and that snow, melted,
pigments the pastels of our waters at dusk.





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