Come Away

Where have all the romantics gone?

Is there a place for us, 

A place where our faltering words,

our soulful, boundless, gray words 

fall like rain upon white sheets 

of murdered trees?

 

I search the manuscripts,

the magazines, the blogs, 

the websites…

 

Is there no more room 

for the flowers of Pemberley? 

Does Jane Eyre 

lay silent in her grave?

Do tears still stain the cheeks 

of the youngling over the 

torn wing of the butterfly?

 

My heart aches. 

I search the manderings 

of the foolhardy,

of the complacent,

of the modern progressive.

 

Come out come out 

wherever you are,

the followers 

of silent forest pathways

or rain-felled garden stone walkways.

 

Are there any who still 

hold their breast 

at the ocean waves, 

still catch their breath with every crest fall?

 

Is there a place for our words? 

If so, please tell me.

For I long to fill the pages

of a handmade leather bound journal

to find Ms. Potter laying about the ground 

conversing with the brown rabbit.

 

To run headlong into another girl 

such as I, 

a pencil in her hand, her hair,

a notebook tucked away in a pocket,

her lips pursed with thoughts

needing to be expressed

needing to be read,

pondered over. 

 

Are there any more like us?

These gray-pink girls

with hearts all a flutter 

over the white herring

which flies over head.

 

Whose eyes water 

over the trailing wind 

among the willows,

the storming wind 

searing through 

the long yellowed grasses

of the moors, the dunes.

 

I wonder..

Where are you

my fellow lovelies?

Do you hide in the libraries

surrounded by the words 

of our elders

or within the classrooms

of our colleges

learning new things,

forgetting the old?

 

Come out come out

wherever you are,

we need you,

we need your prudence,

your thoughtfulness,

your musings and ponderings,

 

your romantic gray-pink words

which fall from your lips, your pen

like delicate rose petals in death. 

 

Come, let us chat over tea,

delight in the simplest of things,

talk not of politics, of wars, of hate.

Let us instead muse over 

the ants carrying heavy loads,

over the flight of the dragonfly,

the lit up grasses under a full moon.

 

Let us look to the magnificence of the moon

and dream and yearn

for quieter days,

for laughter,

for kinship.

 

Come away with me!

Come, let us play 

as school girls

at hopscotch,

at tag,

let us lay upon quilts 

upon the lawn, 

let us read from our favorite passages

 

let us giggle over 

boyish behaviors,

make fun of the arrogance of men,

let us be feminine, 

feisty, and at times full of rage,

ff passion. 

 

Let us grow old 

in grace,

in wisdom,

in love.

 

In kinship.