Audrey – For Helen McNulty

You should have played Moon River –

Audrey Hepburn that you are,

Music bending air, time aquiver,

Beauty born under a poet’s star –

 

Warmth, grace, edge

Humour, fluid sound,

Dancing on the ledge

Lives in lost and found,

 

“You’re her” you say to me

Spreading your arms wide

As I gape at the mystery,

And you say I should not hide,

In a place of eras we forget,

In water’s fragmented frame

You call me Kate Winslet,

Sweet scent takes any name,

 

“You’re a rose”, you say

And I try not to quip

of life drifting away,

Icebergs, fire, a sinking ship,

Like water we are mosaists

crafting the beautiful broken,

In loss and laughter we persist

Sharing what cannot be spoken,

 

Boys break the translucent pane

Scattering our poems and songs;

Diving through the membrane

Of words with water bombs,

 

In the first seconds after so many years,

We hug and hold hands tight as we walk,

Kindreds can re-kindle beyond joy and tears,

Shared ripples and silence, music and talk –

 

Talk of curves, high heels,

Theatre on Thursdays,

Lost loves, found ideals,

Unforgotten days,

 

To the curious children you sing Adele

I, within echoes,  find my own voice,

Friendship’s like breath, a wishing well,

A source of strength, insight, choice,

 

Dave comes and I film your melody,

Letters spun with notes and given lease

A keepsake for canal to gift to the sea

Before we each lift away, like geese,

 

Under this bridge the water is flowing –

We un-captured within word or stream,

Where the time goes there’s no way of knowing,

Artists envisioning a kaleidoscope dream,

Still moments like a photograph unfading,

Reflections in blue, gold, grey and green,

Air resonates while a weasel is wading,

I won’t forget, in this instant I am seen,

 

As the globe is gathering ninety-nine miles away

We reflect between the filmic light and shade

In minutes, eons we pass three hours of a day

A cinematic memory it will take an age to fade.

 

Antonia Sara Zenkevitch