I Remember You Poem by Suzanne Stroop

I remember you, still wet behind the ears.
Abbreviated ducktail, sideburns, black boots, peg leg pants,
Black shirt and a black guitar held tight against your heart.
A menagerie of words and music already forming in your head,
Creating magic.

I remember you.
Ivory buckskins with beaded tassels
Hanging from your sleeves.
Brown hair falling down below your shoulders in unruly waves,
And laying light against your brow.
Sultry lips and light brown eyes with hints of hazel
That somehow touched us all.
Introspective and shy, but winged and ready to fly.
Notes and words on vellum paper drifting through the rooms you played,
Filling up the empty spaces, while sparks of green and blue
Flew from your fingertips as your guitar strings hummed.

I remember you.
Older now with gray in places never touched before.
Black dress pants, white shirt, bolero jacket,
And a butterscotch voice.
Those same wings unfurled, in full flight and soaring.
Daughter's, coming to see their mother's secret lover,
And falling too.
Words and music stacked in decades with new ones dancing in your mind.
A halo of green, blue and gold stretching from your fingers,
Then raining down in soft drops for each of us to feel.
So many hearts trying to reach you, the world could hear them calling.

Now here we are decades later, both of us much older still.
Silver hair cut short, black shoes,
Dressed in a much more casual fare.
Wings stretched wide, entwining us all in total comfort.
Aware of what has come and gone and sure of who you are, you smile.
The circle is complete.
Still, with every shrug of your shoulder's, swivel of your hips,
And the hiss that ends so many words,
Colors of the rainbow merge around you, then float away to us.
I remember you.

I remember you,
And when I fly away I'll take a part of all this with me.
The songs and voice that took me from the girl I was...
To the woman I became, etched in my soul.
Just as the words you penned are etched in my heart today.
I remember you.