Fallen leaves crumble
Under your light feet
And I hear you as you stumble
Down the bronzed street.
I turn around
Expecting a smile
With the soft and simple sound
Of you laughing all the while,
But see nothing but my trodden path
And trampled leaves as I left them,
The feeling of this sudden wrath
Is where longing decides to stem.

For your wide eyes
And your small words
The day shines
And singing birds
Watch my steady hand
Drawing your blurred memory
On a table that can't stand
With a wrist that is never steady.
Purple for the flowers
Of your crimson rage
And romantic powers
Bleed onto this page,
Then a dark line
To sharpen my blurred mind
So I can give myself a sign
That I don't need to find
Your clear photograph
In someone else's gallery
Since I can just have
This portrait made by memory.

And finally an ancient gold
Like your heart
To tell the story you had told
In the dying greens of my art.