Dragonflies and Daffodils – 14th March 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen

As the summer days came by, drifting,
my demeanour grew more uplifting;
I took to sitting upon the sill,
to occupy the sunshine’s gifting.

Long gone the air of old winter’s chill,
April showers and softening still;
the harshness of all those darkest nights;
open the window to dog days thrill.

Ever changing, yet familiar sights,
somehow, the world now set to rights,
Lee and Nancy, with their velvet song,
saw me shine under the bright stage lights.

The future mine, I could do no wrong;
angels of innocence kept me strong;
yet now, the window, open too long,
the chill returns, and my hope all gone.

Nancy
her deep blue eyes
watch me from the cover
first stirrings of teenage dreaming
beauty

A chain rhyme quatrain (with bonus Cinquain) for an AllPoetry assignment, and shared with dVerse with the prompt Open Window.

During the summer, when I was 11 or 12, I would sit on the sill of my bedroom window with the window open to the birds and my imagination. I would imagine that I was the next Lee Hazlewood singing along to the whole of the Lee and Nancy album and hoping that I would be talent-spotted by any random passerby, of which there were very few as I lived in a remote countryside village. Not helped by the fact that I would duck away in shyness if anyone ever did come by! I was also a terrible singer.

I remember this album cover clearly and was sure that Nancy Sinatra had blue eyes! I can still see it in my mind!

But then look at this poem that I wrote 4 years ago, where I clearly state that she has dark eyes! Don’t trust your memory!

Did I just write a seasonal poem, too? I may have to kill myself.

9 thoughts on “Dragonflies and Daffodils – 14th March 2025”

  1. “angels of innocence kept me strong”

    I can so identify with this poem, Shaun, and around the same age too, though the singers were different. For me it was the Carpenters, and I would sing not on the window sill but through the open car window in the back seat coming home from whatever do my parents had taken me too, And these “angels” did keep me strong as good music does. I loved the form you chose and the way you conformed it to your lyrical tone. Wonderful!

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    1. Thanks Dora 🙏

      I did a double take as I was typing out the line about angels of innocence. What did I mean?

      When we are young and naive we still have a self belief that we can do anything. Why do we lose it as we become more aware of the world around us? If we are no longer innocent, are we then guilty?

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      1. Which are all good questions. For me the innocence was the promise of the music itself, something pure, perfect, and out of this world, not realizing that being in the world, the promise is just that, a promise of what could be, but never is in this imperfect world. Life wrestles that truth into us, doesn’t it?

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