Lay down your sword
And I will lay down my pen
And we shall meet in the meadow by your father’s house.
The one you always wanted to take me to but never did.
I shall find my own way there
I will leave my footprints upon the thawing earth
As the only reminder that I was here.
We shall lay aside our inequities and cast aside doubt
We can sit and speak of how things are
We can mention how they were
And forget the rest.
You can forgive me for not riding upon a higher moral horse
As I forgive your impatience
You left a sign in the window for me to find
I missed the obvious, overlooked again
Now we fight in this brutal absence of sound
Your sword donning the blood from a thousand battles of insults and petty disagreements
Their ridicules’ built you up and tore you down
Yet my lips remained silence, nothing escaped, lest you forget.
Here I’ll say you chase ghosts like Quixote chased windmills
And use my pen to express what my sword cannot
That I loved you
I honestly loved you
Whether it was a sign from fate or a missed chance
That I passed that window in vain
Rest easy, my restless one.
She will find you, like I once did, as he has now found me.
You can take her into your father’s house and put your sword to rest.
I shall keep my pen.
From: The Sign in the Window: 2011 Y-City Writers’ Forum Writing Contest
Published by: Y-City Writers’ Forum
2011 edition
© Copyright 2011 ~ Lori Ann Kusterbeck
Sincerely, Lori 