A Wandering Gypsy

A Wandering Gypsy

I wander a gypsy

and could not come into your house

even when you saw how it broke me

broke my calm and took me down

In my fatigue

I could not fight away the hurt images

and their mean touching

they liquefied in my heart

like colours, my clothes, myself melding with the sea

Still a gypsy

still a colourful imaginative beggar

and how I camp when a man,

No, when you,

show a little care and concern

for my presence (of mind)

And I forget my own fierceness

and I betray what is strong in me

for fairy tales and their glitter in my life

betraying the heavy responsibility

we all must bear

to be joyfully alive

I feel my pain, my needs

affront you

as I remember one of the colours of my hurt

and the irony of the words you say

though you would not share your focus with me

As I fold my dreams

with the tiny scent of wildflowers

begging my gypsy soul

to sustain me in the cool softness

of my left eye tearing

Nevertheless

I resist the sharp temptation,

the mad impulse to communicate

to share these subtle ideas

these emotions

that come between words and words

protecting my heart from the rebuff

But...for love’s sake

I must only consider

whatever widens the field of faithful activity

the farrowed rows of courage

and be graceful in my vulnerability

​​​Jacqueline Anne Colquhoun

Caribbean Sea, October 16, 2014