Dear Ophelia

"I can't work completely out of my imagination. 

I must put my foot in a bit of truth; and then I can fly free." 

 ~  Andrew Wyeth

 

Dear Ophelia,

I hear you each time

I hold a seashell in my hand.

We were summer,

first love, bold initials

heart framed in sand.

I found you in August of ‘59

when waves splashed

incessantly toward September.

Eternity arrived with your smile,

but youth was our demon.

Forever couldn’t survive distance.

We became a memory

even before we spoke goodbye.

We were too star blind to see

the cruelty in horizons.

Ophelia, I am an old man

trying to find eighteen again,

trying to bottle the sea

so waves will never reach September.

©Susie Clevenger 2016

Real Toads ~ Artistic Interpretations ~ Andrew Wyeth