B is for: Balderdash

For Carolyn

I think I think of the world as is, but

Before, after, during what was or may well be,

Joining as we do, seeking sacred scattered longings and recall.

For instance,

A satire in which we both indulged:

Me, scarf floating in the foggy breeze,

Preciously luting madrigals boasting of true love,

Petitioning for response and recompense from the gathered few.

You, reading by candlelight,

listening to swirling melodies blown in from the outside,

Hearing in deepest imagining what the last stone has recorded.

Soon, too soon,

Interrupted by the beep, beep, beep of reversing lorries,

We know what we hear but not what follows:

The returning of the plague of not-so-distant memory?

Hannah of Cleves gently bowing down to her self-declared king?

James the Ripper lurking around any corner, set to rob us of both life and castle?

I say how I love thee, ignoring what hobgoblins may be raised;

Interjecting cries of “balderdash!” "Piffle!"

Only the appendant to these shenanigans, mere tomfoolery.

We know that we will be there to laugh or cry together in the ancient air,

The sterile room, the house of equivocal repute;

Will tell tales short and tall,

Stare balefully at what else may and will come of us,

Declaring only this certainty.

7/27/25

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