A poem based on a memory of a beautiful soul.

Laying her head on a stone she sang with a voice undulated with joy
taking summer and me by surprise, with a dolce voce that rang high
like a million butterflies
giving up their sighs
I watched her in the middle of a throng close to a water fountain
"Just a little longer I can stay" she'd vow to the quiet saints above
but when her time was up she lay there on a rock and sang some more
She reminded me of another young girl I once knew who lived upstairs
with a Spanish mother who had her on a leash. One day she ran away
to park Miron were the quarry boulders were high and solid . She sang
like a million butterflies
giving up their sighs
until the sun went down and then oh what precious cost she did pay
One day she married a blacksmith called Roger Stone. He took her to
Italy and kept her behind closed doors. So jealous was he of her great
beauty that he forbid her to ever leave the house. She sang alone by
a window, until the wild horses took her and galloped her away
like a million butterflies
giving up their sighs
she sang, until her last breath of day.

March 3, 2020