Lavender Teardrops

Rolling countryside
with wisteria like
lavender teardrops
over ancient, bony oaks'
dead arms,
no sense to make of it.
Into the red clay roads,
redder than Georgia,
blood red
and those who live it
are there waiting
blank-eyed and starring
like waiting for the next minute
because that is all there is.

The struggle too harsh
like a life only half-existing,
with a black eye
running, crying into sunsets
that cannot exist
in any half-ordinary sense.

And the anguish
is soothed by nightly
bottles of wine
full and warm
in crystal
to take the edge from
all of the sights.

If it were not for the
scarlet-orange blossom
or the translucent
celery-green stem
fractured in the water,
spotlighted and glistening,
yet the eyes keep starring...

But you are so warm
and your skin so soft.
You in your blue blazer
and handsome tan,
you walk me out of these
bad dreams.