In a town long abandoned by unpleasant fate
And swept by a motherly grove
Sat I, in a somber, contemplative state,
Just pondering, pondering love.

Perched on a doorstep of kiln-hardened brick,
And long overwatched by a dove,
Sat I, like a candle's new-birthed (yet slain) wick,
In the vigorous embrace of love.

My heart, like a punch bowl, filled to its brink
And destined in moments to break,
High-jumped at the fleeting, but positive wink
Intercepted by shore of the lake.

And in my heart's hole (for it surely was lost)
Lurked a jolly, wine-guzzling snake
Entitled "Amor." Oh, my reason was tossed
On the winsome wink-waves of that lake.

In the ice-sheathed, white winter we nestled in fire,
Warmed by infernos inside.
In the unblemished springtime we courted desire
With vermillion Rosebush as our guide.

In the soft-hearted summer, the season of heat,
Our companionship camped on lakeside.
In autumn we wandered the ripening wheat,
The swift-setting sun our sole guide.

In my drunk heart hung the framed face of she
Whose countenance I loved so well.
The maiden whose lifetime was promised to me:
The unsurpassed, silver-cast Belle.

Oh, for the certain unlimited years
We'd abide between Heaven and Hell.
Oh, jubilant ignorance, untouched by fears
Of the undoing of Belle.

When once again the white winter arrived,
It carried a satchel of blight.
A red, rampant plague, having schemed and connived,
Made its chilling checkmate in the night.

Severing kinship like so many strings,
Death massacred Love, clad in white.
To heaven flew she, borne on pox-patterned wings,
And vanished in blackening night.

In the iced second month of my yesteryear
Arrived fantasy at its dead end.
Perched on my porch sit I, pondering here,
Lamenting the loss of a friend.

Oh, the young year that my heart was complete
To a thousand I long to extend!
But I must remain, on life's black, one-way street,
And pine for my blight-stricken friend.