Author's Note:
Sixty years ago today, on July 2, 1966, my happy, hopeful, pure, trusting, and loving heart was irrevocably broken. It was sudden, totally unexpected, and brutally and clearly communicated to me as final. I was dumbfounded. Confused. I wanted to die on the spot.
My life and outlook on life was thenceforth forever changed by the spiritual and emotional trauma of that day.
It subsequently took over half a century, until 2018, for me to discover the reason behind my shunning, a fact that I had over the years come vaguely to suspect, but had only now fully understood.
With the poem below, I now hope finally to come to terms with my naive belief in the certainty of anything, especially as it relates to humankind, and to the sad conclusion that God's "mysterious ways" will forever remain a mystery to me, for it was a perverted use of God's love that has caused so much misery for so many.
Amorance
Lilacs are often considered to symbolize first love.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syringa)
Brittle scattered heart-shaped leaves glissade
across the crusted snow, on days as thin
as twigs, and nights when dreams wind back to then.
Every dormant, overwintering bud,
defending future flowers, future seed
with overlapping scales of mauve and green
and ancient symmetries of fixed design
confronts the cold in armored certitude.
However, God may choose, next spring, to scatter
frost like ashes, and the snow like wool
and kill each blooming lilac panicle.
My January dreams are stinging, bitter.
Though we were brave, by force of circumstance,
Love of my Youth, we didn’t stand a chance.
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