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[Vincent Turner]

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In this neck-straining deafness
garden birds chirp a mime,
as wind flung branches bow
like those in finished prayer.

All those early marriage days
sinking beneath the bath water
to silence the snap of an argument
how I wish to recall them.

In these slowed-bone days
we do not star gaze
nor walk the garden path
where old friends of sixteen

summers gone would shed petals
as though each day was a marriage.
The weeds grow brave now, bird bath
glistens a stagnant pool.

It's a far off country now
unattainable and wild.

In this narrowing blindness
morning light is a short lived friend,
flooding the room with presence
it is the child we never had.

Mostly the house is a blur,
a steamed window screen,
dusk has made its bed in every room.
Words migrate from books
like startled birds.

In these twilight days
when every photo on every wall
holds faces but forgotten names
home is where the heart is
not.

[Jenifer]

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Hey Vincent, as I was reading the one stanza that enjambs into the next I was thinking it might be kind of cool if all the stanzas enjambed into the next, sort of like a days/weeks/months/years running together sort of thing as shown through the stanza progression...

Jen

[Vincent Turner]

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Hi Jen

Thanks for the suggestion... do you mean something like this.....


In this neck-straining deafness
garden birds chirp a mime,
as wind flung branches bow
like those in finished

prayer.   All those early marriage days
sinking beneath the bath water
to silence the snap of an argument
how I wish to recall

them.   In these slowed-bone days
we do not star gaze
nor walk the garden path
where old friends of sixteen

summers gone would shed petals
as though each day was a marriage.
The weeds grow brave , bird bath
glistens a stagnant pool.
It's a far off country now
unattainable and

wild.   In this narrowing blindness
morning light is a short lived friend,
flooding the room with presence
it is the child we never

had.   Mostly the house is a blur,
a steamed window screen,
dusk has made its bed in every room.
Words migrate from books
like startled

birds.   In these twilight days
when every photo on every wall
holds faces but forgotten names
home is where the heart is
not.