Cloud Cuckoo

On a bed of red tulips we lay
Caught in a burning embrace
Under the peacock sky where never
A cloud tarried but winds married
The hours into days;

Promises enchanted the words whispered
In soft daffodil light
When all that was spoken carried no harm
For hope flourished in the arms
Of the lover returned unbidden
To carry me away;

But the cardinal’s call warned of
Sorrow approaching by the light
Of the close of day,
Beneath the oak regret found us
Tarrying while shadows deepened beckoning
The sorrows of leaving;

The days have been many with time
No longer bound by whispered words
That carried eternity in their sounds,
Outside the window the oak has fallen
A refuge now for creatures caught
In other storms,
A reflection in glass of a spring long past
A corrupted memory.