Deepest Blue

We were children,
and we were old beyond our years.
In autumn, when leaves burn,
our skins cooled.
 
We painted our faces
and gleamed behind our war-masks—
Yours the deepest blue,
and mine, a heady purple.
 
Then the poppy red and cleansing white
came tumbling over us—
I fled to my urban temple and
you to yours.
 
On hands and knees
we pleaded to relive hollowed memories,
until you stood in waters refined
and I saw myself flow from you.
 
I should have flown soft
like a rose-tipped petal on a silken breeze,
or tumbled lightly into a gardener’s pail,
to grow and to grieve,
 
But when you looked up
I was so sore with reprieve
All strength melted from me
and I withered where I was.
 
An echo, I was emptied
and my edges blurred,
until I was the muted memoir
of a girl I could only pantomine.
 
When I saw you again,
your hands glowed with the gold
we sought but did not find—
Our own hands thick with clay.
 
When you found her,
she was heady purple,
and I watched with eyes of aspen
as deepest blue burst you like a dam.
                                                
We are not what we make ourselves,
Though we dress in rhymes and riddles.
Our souls still speak in silence,
In deepest blue, indefinite.