If I Were a Poet

I remember your eyes,
your words like jewels flashing.
Always a smile toward sad listeners.
It always felt like a miracle was about to happen.

Then they took you away
to a wet green land of chalk and reason
where you lived in a tent
and the rain came down
and ran with the chalk into your boots and your heart,
where men talked in an upside-down language
about blood,
and the blood ran with the chalk into gutters
filled with still-born dreams.

It is no surprise that I cannot recognize you now.
There is no audience except the rain.
Your jewels have turned to clay,
and the miracle that never happened
stayed behind in that green land.