Will I drip away on a rainy day
Will a sullen shower wash me away
And there be nothing I can say
Will I drip away on a rainy day?
Will I shrivel when sunbeams are hot?
While searching for a shady spot
Will all I was, become “is not”?
Will I waft aghast when the wild winds gust
To dissipate the seeds of trust
And blast away both vain and just?
Will I shiver to shade at the dead of the night
Among dark things that turn from light
With none to see or hear my plight?
Will I be plucked from town streets full
Of a hurrying hustling crowd’s push and pull
As they heedless prolong their own cull?
Will jealousy strike by a lover’s cursed hand?
Will one whose glance did once command
My heart, snuff out romance we planned?
Will I drift when the winter is deep?
Will my quivering heart slip to sleep
When my frozen limbs warm it can’t keep?
Will I slip when the copper leaves fall?
Will they form me a fluttering pall
When earth’s creatures to bed start to crawl?
Will spring’s kiss herald when I depart?
When the chorusing birds the days start
Will they drag me away on death’s cart?
Will my memory linger long?
Will the love that I leave remain strong
Like a deed celebrated in song?
Will my last spoon be swallowed in June
And will none of my art be immune
And will everything wane like the moon?
Will my lover’s arms hold me to die
In a cradle as I say goodbye
With the benison of my last sigh?
Or will I drip away on a rainy day?
Photo Bryan Ledgard
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Stephen A. Linstead
Pictures by A. Linstead & Bryan Ledgard
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