VERSE / Alyce Guynn : Pale Mornings

     Brass buttons, green silks and silver shoes
     warm evenings, pale mornings, bottle of blues
          “Brass Buttons,” Gram Parsons

She removes her precious memories
from the store room of her heart
unwraps the protective tissue paper
shielding them from today’s
enlightened air, amorphous moisture
and lays them out, not only for reminiscing
but also, examination

Like the yellowed silk of yesterday’s finery
the treasured recollections reveal
the wear and tear of time

     It was a dream much too real
     to be leaned against too long

She has curated these memories
catalogued them, carefully preserved
in papyrus of the everlasting now
protected from the inherent vandalism
of close scrutiny

     Gram Parsons wrote
     “Brass Buttons” when he was 18

The eternal second guessing:
too much purple? Did they drink
too deeply from the bottle of blues?

     Gram Parsons died way too young
     he never knew how famous
     he would become

Pretty pictures of the past
too precious to be pixilated
too fragile to be framed

Like yesterday’s satin doll
edged in tatting and lace
ivory slowly shading to yellow
unable to retain its glow

     The bearded man from five blocks down
     suggesting Billy Gibbons
     always waves when I drive by
     the one-finger, Texas two-lane wave

Here in the eternal now
witness to her agony
rumpled and tousled
she leans over her shadow
observing self

It always slew her
each time she let herself
revisit his eyes
the look landing on her
an echoing thud of knowing
seeing behind her lids
where all her yearning hid out
like the Younger brothers
in the Missouri hills

With doleful acceptance
but no regrets
she steps inside her past
profound and magical in its excess
shimmering, incandescent
memories not to be squandered
brought out on rare occasions
carefully shared with trusted few
not to be profaned by parading
sheltered from indiscriminate scorn

     And all the while
     I think she knew

© Alyce Guynn
The Rag Blog
December 2012
Austin, Texas

[Alyce Guynn’s poetry appears in Feeding the Crow and Deal Me In, a book of her love poems illustrated by Jesse “Guitar” Taylor. A former reporter for the Austin American-Statesman in the ‘60s, Alyce never wrote for The Rag, but read it regularly. Alyce also works as an antitrust investigator.]

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