The gilded leaves glitter the ground
and set my mind afire.
With gossamer flame, they’re fairy-gowned,
stitched with filigree wire.
Saturated light teases and taunts
Its spectral hue glimmers and haunts
I reach and breathe and ache and moan
Such fleeting beauty sears the bone.
But feathered hope with ruffled breast
May roost in secret lair
With tuneful song, not once repressed,
And wings to catch the air.
So though my yearning heart does break,
And I must breathe the red-hot ache,
I find my peace in fragrant leaf
And soothe my soul of soaring grief.
Why some of us are born with certain gifts is to me anyway a mystery. We can hone our talents through practice, but in the final analysis we were gifted in a certain way or not.Jacqui seems to have been born with a the gift to express herself in meter and rhyme in a seamless way. A given line, a given image, a given last word for the rhyme scheme, never seems stilted or there only because she could not think of anything else. It's as if she has knocked on my door and a given poem flows out like natural speech. One senses that each poem says exactly what she wanted it to say. Further, emotionally a given poem may take the reader on a roller coaster ride, now joyful, now sorrowful, now wise, now ironic. And again, this is achieved naturally and rhythmically. When sharing a subjective experience, she puts the reader right there. When speaking for a generation it feels like we are all included. Since I cannot do this myself, I do not understand how she does it, other than to come back to the notion of natural talent. Jacqui was born to write poetry; she is a poet.
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