Two Poems
Lady in the Park by Childe Hassam, 1897
by Janet Charlesworth (March 2022)
THE GARDEN
the peace descends
on a sunny walk sometimes,
and in half closed eyes
a dazzling counterfeit light,
sent to tease, mislead
soon calms and goes
to leave a softer truer place
watching thoughts dancing and
circling the body tone,
feeling lumps and pains,
strain and tears, and the years
fleeting before the inner eye
trying to engage
and hold me here
slowly I can slip away
leaving mind on guard
with a rhyme to chant, aware
but not daring to see
that I have gone
back to the Garden
for a short eternal time
PROJECTION
the man has been true to himself
my projection was the blinding force
holding me fast in it’s grasp
chasing him here, there,
fleeting mirages all
shimmering in the distance
ever close but eluding grasp
I failed to see
the man has been true to himself
and not to my projections of me
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Janet Charlesworth is a writer from Canada.
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