Song for a Homeless Lady
It wasn't me
that brushed a strand from your freckled face.
It wasn't me
that nursed your feet after you rambled around town,
lost and confused in the beating sun.
It wasn't me that brought you water.
That made you drink.
That offered you home.
How could it have been?
We haven't known each other, yet, in this life.
In that other world, the one I dream about sometimes,
I carried your burdens through the copse,
while you held our sun-dappled, dark-haired child.
In this life I've seen you once.
Your eyes on the river carried themselves to a distant land.
Perhaps you too, were dreaming of the trees.
Image from Pixabay, by Free-Photos
This poem came out in five minutes, as a chunk of prose, and then I spent an hour trying to figure out how to cast it in stanzas.
I didn't know when I began writing, but "Song for a Homeless Lady" is third in a series of poems I've written for Hive with a Native American theme.
You can read the first two poems, "The Rain I Didn't Know" and "He Danced," in this post.