VI: Kingdoms#
Two children crossed an earthen bridge
From level lawns to forests wild
Along the rivered arc descending ridge.
With dirty hands, they sang and smiled.
Their charted map from zippered packs
Now in branches espied its target
As clearing yields to lily blacks
Their kingdom’s fresh air market.
Lord and lady honorary, cheeked blush,
Sat upon thrones of woven grass,
Coronated by chirping choir thrush;
A falling grain in hourglass.
On a maiden morning moments hence,
They meet again upon the autumn passing,
Where from heart’s removed pretense
On tender lips, farewell’s final massing.
Lily lyrics whisper sing from ground
Reminders of their childish notions;
World departed, their lives are found
Separate by spanning roads and oceans.
In the city, their trains diverge,
Through tunnels tracked by wagered hours;
Iron rails through hearts do purge
Their aged minds of lily flowers.
Winter drifts over concrete streets,
In the thrush’s snow sad song
Delivered them in voice downbeat
The final dirge of life prolonged.
In the cold, their dream dissolved
With the clock’s incessant ticking
Falling strokes of time resolved,
They follow home a casket’s wicking,
Returned again to a lily covered field
Where once royals played for a day;
With new hearts scored and peeled
In the funerary cloud of gray,
In the clearing, coffins buried,
Their eyes met in solitary gaze.
In dirt developed their earthen walls,
Roofed the sky to room above,
Where lord and lady clothed in shawls
Sing the thrushs’ songed love.
March 2025
Date |
Publication |
Status |
|---|---|---|
April 7, 2025 |
The New Yorker |
Pending |
June 12, 2025 |
Macrame Literary Journal |
Rejected |