Poetry
Undelivered
The mailman delivered dandelions
Today.
They blew away.
My lover gone across the world,
Tattered,
Ripped from home,
And fighting war.
Day to day mirrored a missing piece,
A puzzle,
Scattered,
The edges ragged, creased.
And fog erased the sun
As if a crayon in gold
Undone.
And day-by-day, the mailman came,
Wearily delivering sorrow, in the rain,
News of loss and news of gain,
Fickle blessings, all the same.
Yet a letter never came.
Naught but want of warm words,
pleas for prayers ne’er received.
Did a parchment lie, unsigned, unsent,
On a mountainside, a testament
Now bartered into war-torn ash?
All my wishes dashed,
As dandelions in the breeze did soar
And life goes on, about me, as before.
Sandra Fox Murphy
Undelivered
The mailman delivered dandelions
Today.
They blew away.
My lover gone across the world,
Tattered,
Ripped from home,
And fighting war.
Day to day mirrored a missing piece,
A puzzle,
Scattered,
The edges ragged, creased.
And fog erased the sun
As if a crayon in gold
Undone.
And day-by-day, the mailman came,
Wearily delivering sorrow, in the rain,
News of loss and news of gain,
Fickle blessings, all the same.
Yet a letter never came.
Naught but want of warm words,
pleas for prayers ne’er received.
Did a parchment lie, unsigned, unsent,
On a mountainside, a testament
Now bartered into war-torn ash?
All my wishes dashed,
As dandelions in the breeze did soar
And life goes on, about me, as before.
Sandra Fox Murphy