“This Ring”

“This Ring”

by Jade Nicole Beals

Which shape ring do you think you would choose?
Would you hear my call for you, my cue and choose?

Would you pause a moment to listen and ask me,
If I know it is you whom I choose?

I know the shapes and colors and hues you might name would be many.
And yet do I know the coolest blue of you whom I choose?

It feels safe for me to fall back within your shade.
I’ll fall asleep and rest within it, this cool blue you could not choose.

I’ll awaken and warm the silence that enwraps the blue within you.
I'll fill your sadness with my poems and patient silences, for you whom I choose.

I might wish to find you the perfect scarf to go along with that ring.
It could be long, fitted, or flowing—a shade of blue I do choose.

Your lips are the color of the quietest roses which are the most beautiful.
They’re brightly-painted sometimes, too and every hue of which I’d choose.

That brightness will not flash in and flash out and stun the eyes.
You are the rose who remains—I might place a rose hue upon your face, too, if you choose.

The green leaves that sprung up and burned away collected at our feet; I've loved them.
Dying or just born, I gather them: poems, paintings, roses—anything you choose.

I may not paint myself within a great portrait of my own.
I find myself so often unspoken, my love not repeated—but in everything I do, I choose.

I may lift my cup and drink my water and know nothing of the silkiness that's within the cup.
You may suddenly lift me up and kiss me and I'll save everything we do, I choose.

The water I drink is fresh and cool and I'll pour another glass for you.
You may surprise me with a warmer hue of blue and blush to follow, if it is you who I choose.

I may laugh for you, but I like your laugh even more. 
Silent and open tonight is my door, if you do so choose…

Within your name, I hear the ring of my own. Come inside, you know it is you whom I choose!

Jade

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A few guidelines of a ghazal: The poem is written in two line stanzas (couplets) with at least 5 stanzas and usually less than 15 total. I wasn’t aware of that writing mine, yet mine has 14.
The ‘end’ word (or refrain) is the last word of the second line of every couplet, rhyme scheme involves that last rhyming word, and each couplet is a full or separate idea able to stand on its own without the others.

I also did not know when I was writing this poem that poets’ traditionally placed their own name in the final stanza, and you will see, in a way, I had done that!

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This poem appears in print in Indelible, Issue #6, “The Feminine.”