Gabrielle Johansen

Shouldering Past

Transparent as a lover's heart,
soft as the happy portion
of the seventeen roses
you once breathed deep.
In bliss, you see symphonies.
You hear the stars.
Auras are palpable.
Tasting the first frostbitten
apple of dissolution,
bliss is likely to
become bitter,
bitten or not.
And yet, if you can,
shoulder past these
tentative days.
The roses will crinkle
again in sharp, sweet
bloom. The apples will
bud out from tight green
to blown crimson delicious.
Bliss will confound your senses,
an echo of a circle,
a shadow of a cycle,
turning, turning, turning
around the wheel of us.

Born in New England, but raised in the Southeast, Gabrielle Johansen has spent most of her life as a North Carolinian. She has been writing poetry since the age of twelve but has only recently begun to share her poems with the world at large, thanks mostly to the kind and extremely educational environment of the online website, The Critical Poet.