The Common Word


I forfeited you to the common.
Just a word lacking conviction.
A broach pinned to a lapel
as a strange societal predilection.

And the world became dark.

That’s when the search began
for something so common missing.
But I’d forgotten your name
and misplaced your need.

There are songs to your fingers wrapped
in the fabric of quiet moments in café’s
and there are poems to your strength
during the most confrontational times.

Today I can hold flowers and watch
the colour of spring as though captured
in amber–the heat of summer pyroclastic–
the empty dress of autumn swirling

in a wind which has taken too much.