To a Lover, Foolishly Abandoned Years Ago, For Her Birthday in Early April

What I wish for you: sunrise, with just the right number of clouds,
at just the right altitude, to tint and refract slanting rays onto your garden;

air, mild, moist; a breeze strumming the new leaves like a harp,
and slipping through the open bedroom window like a stealthy lover,

stirring you from magical dreams. Coffee’s brewing aroma;
cat brushing your bare ankle, or maybe a grateful dog; chores,

light and familiar, that await you, and no more; a walk to be taken,
redbud for color, mock orange for perfume, and a patient

slender heron stalking shallow water; redwing blackbirds, too
perched on swaying cattails, singing for a mate.

Back home, books to be read, really, too many of them, stacked on end table and nightstand,
one of them splayed open on the seat of your chair, and maybe a story,

anxious to be told, just waiting for evening’s soothing silence and your pen.
More than any of this–someone to share these treasures with.

Now that his beard is white and his back is bent, Alan Abrams has forsaken a remunerative career in pursuit of Erato. Once in a while he catches a glimpse of her before she scurries away. Even so, a smattering of his poems and stories have insinuated themselves into publication, in such varied journals as The Hare’s Paw, The Innisfree Poetry Journal, El Portal, Autumn Sky, and The Black Boot (which alas is no longer afoot). A novel is in the works.

Image: By Sofig (Sophie Grail) – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47320342