Dear Joan Poem by Dean Meredith

Do you have a day to spare?
For me
For you
For our friends
And the others

Do you have a day to spare?
For anyone
Not part of your wars
Your quests
Your dreams

Do you have a single day?
Other than for yourself
And your fleeting esteem
And your record of existence
Of being

Do you have anything?
Left to give
To us or you or others
After all that's been taken
And those bits seemingly lost

Do you someone's Joan?
Have anything anymore
Above survival on a string
Your armour so heavy
And your horse so tired

With Don Quixote
And Quasimodo
Running behind you
Do you have anything?
Left to spare

Lovely thing
Lovely brave solo thing
Your sword so long in its sheath
The rust drips down
And shows through

Lovely shining thing
Has any of it come true?
Those dreams of horses and war
Those romantic deaths of me and you
Beautiful lone Joan

Has any of it come true?
All those wars
Imagined and real
All those loves
Forsaken

Some of us adore you still
Many, let it be said
Beyond the courage
And the beauty and the armour
We don't know why

But we love you still
And always will
We hope
Without fully knowing
Or fully wondering why