Photo by Stacey Newman/iStockphoto
spring winds roll through these islands
the pearl-grey clouds the greening trees the tear-making
flowers
as I spend hours tramping through the shiny streets
for that perfect object to mark our love
& yet the search eludes me
— what jewel can echo
what text or image match
what cloth, heaven-made or not —
as the streets & shop windows
fill with glitter few can afford
searching for marble or magic
I wish I could offer
something as nice as a kiss
Copyright © 2010 by Geoffrey Jacques
Geoffrey Jacques is a poet and author who has edited several books for Harlin Jacque Publications and who also teaches English at York College and John Jay (CUNY), as well as at New York University. His most recent books are Just for a Thrill (Wayne State University Press) and A Change In the Weather: Modernist Imagination, African American Imaginary (University of Massachusetts Press). Find out more about Geoffrey Jacques on his website, www.geoffreyjacques.com.
The overwhelming charm and tender sentiments of this poem almost disguise the intricacy of its powerful construction. Solzhenitsyn said that every song is a love song, and perhaps equally, that could be said of every poem. It might not be true, but it does give the heart pause.