Lonesome Dove

This is a U.S. folk song of indeterminate origin, apparently, though it's known in Appalachia and throughout the South in one variant or another. I learned it in chorus back the in the day, and I'd forgotten it until tonight. Somehow it always struck a chord with me.



Oh don't you see that lonesome dove
That flies from vine to vine
It's mourning for its own true love
Just like I mourn for mine

Oh don't you see that lonesome dove
That flies so high degree
And ain't it hard for me to die
For the girl that don't love me

Just like I mourn for mine, my love
Believe me what I say
You are the darling of my heart
Until my dying day

The crow is black you know, my love
Although it may turn white
If ever I prove false to thee
Bright day will turn to night

Bright day will turn to night, my love
Believe me what I say
You are the darling of my heart
Until my dying day

I wish I were ten thousand mile
Or on some distant shore
Or down in some low valley place
Where wild beasts howl and roar

Where wild beasts howl and roar, my love
Believe me what I say
You are the darling of my heart
Until my dying day

A sonnet, not so, eh.

Evidently this is what my brain does when it wants to avoid homework. It's too bad it didn't want to be written in iambic pentameter. Then it would have been my only real sonnet ever. I still kinda like it, even if I did fudge one of the rhymes.

Choices

A rose, untimely touch'd by frost
Red petals fair yet edged by death
with little care for what is lost
perfumes the air, its dying breath

What can such tender blossoms know
of what lies past, a moment gone
or yet to come as breezes blow
and kiss or kill with each new dawn

Yet shelter seeks it not, its thorns
do prick all well-intentioned souls,
daring those who'd see it shorn
from its life's blood, though death it chose

In choosing, petals fall like rain
and, kissing earth, find peace again.

Michelle Lyons