OUR MONTH CALLED MAY
by D.A. Pratt
If you listen to a certain song
by Simon and Garfunkel
you will hear several
of the months mentioned,
one after another, as the song
tells a story I know only too well:
it begins by saying in April come she will
and indeed she did, ever so refreshingly,
in a month when so much is promised
in so many ways . . . in May
everything blossomed beautifully
and she seemed ready to stay
in my arms far longer than I
could have ever dared to dream —
ah, that was the good part of our story
but, by listening to the song, you’ll know
what follows, that the good part
cannot possibly last and it didn’t for us,
like the song says, if I can put it this way . . .
I hope every remembered romance
has what we managed to have
in that memorable month of May —
but not the June, nor the July
and definitely not the August . . . I hope
for something better for everyone else . . .
As for me, I know I will linger over
those moments in May . . . when our love
was going so well and it seemed that it
wouldn’t ever end, even though, somehow,
we knew it had to die, as the song says it must . . .
Someday, in my never-ending September,
I’ll remember having a love once new,
having known her, having loved her,
even if only so fleetingly, in a magical month
we like to call May . . .
PAINTING: “The Kiss” (1909) by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: D.A. (David) Pratt lives in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. This “May” poem is inspired by a song by Simon and Garfunkel, his all-time favourite musicians. In 2013, his short prose piece “Encountering Bukowski—Some Canadian Notes” appeared in Bukowski: An Anthology of Poetry & Prose About Charles Bukowski published by Silver Birch Press and his essay entitled “The Five Henry Millers” appeared in the tenth annual issue of Nexus: The International Henry Miller Journal.
NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR: In responding to the call for poems mentioning the month of May, I immediately thought of the song “April Come She Will” by Simon and Garfunkel, knowing that it mentions May . . . I hope the resulting poem honours the song while being, at the same time, an original creation about an imagined romance with one of my imagined muses . . .
Silver Birch Press 