Summerland

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

Crimson kissed my fingertips

as that heady toxin flowed.

Mother Earth’s saccharine scent-

the exhale of a rose.

And now I stand in Summerland,

forgetting winter’s bite.

Daylight cloaked in radiance,

no longer cold and blackened night.

If only I could live inside

this blitheful time before,

If only now were present tense,

not when sorrow beckoned forth.

In summer I can feel your smile,

the brilliance of its flame.

It bathes me in an afterglow

of sunny drunken claim.

Yet, summer was a fading sun,

a blinking, dying light.

It’s dreary winter’s harshest burn

which carries me this night.

Still, senses wake and bathe anew

as crimson kisses flesh

and I can scent your summer sun

through rose’s stilted breath.