The Ease and Charm of You - Poem by Ivan Donn Carswell

There’s an infinity of wisdom in your smile that would deny
the winsome wit that lies at back of it; and then the droll and
cheeky svénska troll of you which peeps out from the
flimsy drape in which you sheet your public soul, an urchin
bold, a squirming sprite who claims a manic tithe
to steal with ease our ears and eyes and hearts.
It is not easy to dismiss your smile or snub a stronger
draught of it, or pass the impish guile infused with honeyed
tones of liquor dews that drip from curve of Nordic lip.
It’s just as hard to think of you as sad as stone
or cold as ice embalmed in time that never passed;
never passed and never thawed,
and never danced and never soared.
The furnace there that is your smile exhibits warmth
that mitigates the frozen fates and overwhelms
their frozen hearth, a warmth debased in languorous grace,
a subtle charm uncommon-placed with cheerful heart.
When you enter any room a light appears to shine from you,
the kind of light that only glows in happy times, a light
which shows no darkened tones, a light which throws
no sharp-edged shadows. And so at last we know the true
length and breadth and depth of you, and breathe with ease
the same enchanted air, we also feel the nascent breeze
that trifles in your vasty hair; at last we know the ease
and charm of you, and feel as free to tell you too.
© I.D. Carswell
To Our Beautiful Svénska Troll