“The Feelings Our Life Has Forgot” by Peggy Everett

Dew christens our world at the crowning of night,
When dawn kindles dew with a wakening light.
With intents to rise in the formative phase,
The incoming morn sets the embers ablaze,

Then gilds all our realm ‘til creation is gold!
When sight has more treasure than coffers can hold.
While birds warble lyrics candescent as art,
Sweet night’s consolations rescind and depart.

Then out in the country and cities and towns,
We’re grasping for cigarettes, glasses, and gowns.
Quick showers, gulped coffee, newspapers to face,
Swift dressing, fast eating: our world is a race.

Then slamming of doors and car engines ignite
To tear through the streets where the dew glistens light.
By bustle of noonday, we likely will not
Vent grief for the feelings our life has forgot.

While street-dwelling poor whom success doesn’t see,
Whose nights have a price, but whose daylight is free,
Now bolstered by beauty and salvaged by heat,
Revive in the sun and subsist on the street.

We rush through rose sunsets the same way we left,
Our scruples consigned and our spirits bereft.
We’ve fam’lies to fend and news broadcasts to scope,
Calamities climb ‘til concern cannot cope,

‘Til twilight arrives and the darkness descends…
Though dark should bring respite and stars make amends.
For dream-desperation and competent sin,
Our common affliction restricts how we win.

While clocks by our beds dole allotments of flight,
We’ve blocks in our heads who are tyrants by right,
Which ration the moon and all possible bliss,
So even our romance is madly remiss.

While under the viaduct romance is strife,
Since embraces share heat, every love is for life.
While a symphony swells of euphonious frogs,
In chorus with crickets and jubilant dogs,
Emblazoned in silver of moon-rays conferred
In honor of music that nobody heard.

Peggy Everett is a blind poet who lives in the rural Pacific Northwest with her spouse and runs a small nonprofit for pets in need.