We All Have Our Choices

I had planned it before he even came.

Unearthed the key I had long buried in my most secret place,
warmed it in my hand, waiting.

I was in ritual, preparing for the giving of this gift.
Smudging walls in copal, dressing the scene in orchids and light,
making prayer without even realizing it.

Naivety has always been my crux.

Upon his scent, which paired well with my own pheremonal elixir,
I loosened my grip, careful not to let his eyes catch sight
of the dirtied brass I gently polished between my fingertips.

He took my feet in his hands. This was the way he touched me first.
I slid the teeth of the key into the mouth of the lock,
poised for the turning.

Confirmation came in the kiss. I had chosen wisely.
Head and eyes rolled back, tongues merging, spirit exhaled through my body,
through my crown chakra and out the soles of my feet.
Love's green cords dropped into the earth, anchoring me on his breath.
Under the din of my smile, I heard the lock unhasp its clasp.

The tsunami rolled in from the deepest sea within me,
swelled in every cell,
broke its waves against my skin,
laid waste to bone and vessel, sinew and muscle.

This rapture ensued.

As he entered me, I flowed out and spread wide and vast as the ocean.
From the depths of my primordial waters
came entities that had never before seen the light.
He reached for his camera to capture the sight.

Brilliantly colored, dancing, singing, they made their way to the surface,
drinking oxygen through my pores,
radiating and glowing behind my eyes.

They whispered their names in ancient tongues, but
said I could just call them "Love."

I welcomed Love, then, just as I did him.
It was my choice to open in this way
and at this time.
It was my prerogative to let minutes fall into hours of nails on his back.
It was my directive to angle my hips just so, that he might touchdown on the ocean floor.
It was my aim to wrap around his flesh as tightly as his corkscrew curls wrapped round my digits.
It was my call to fall.

It was his to improvise.

"Love just IS," he had wanted me to believe,
but Love is also a choice,
and we all have our choices.

I chose him before he even came.

I opened that floodgate.

And now that he is gone,
and there is no certainty he will ever return,
and the waters have receded,
exposing the desolate void of loss and pain,

I will live with my choices.

I, alone, will own this Love.

and even this poem sucks

In the midst of all the busy-ness

as life flourishes

and projects and plans march onward, resolutely,

and people reach out to help

to participate,

offering skills and supplies

free of charge

given with love,

and others call just to check in

making sure I am well

and drinking tea,

and everything in the world is going my way

my mother is nursing a dying husband

my aunt will have to sell her home

my grandfathers are both unwell

and the anniversary of dad's death is just around the corner

an eternal blight on the day of love

and it's been a long time since I've had someone to hug me a bit

or kiss the top of my head

or hold my hand while I sleep

and writing songs is on my to-do list everyday

and never gets done

and even this poem sucks

exhausted

emptied out from giving my all

hurting mostly from always wearing the brave face

I would that I could cry

but it just doesn't seem right

My Witch (1997)

The Lady in Her robes,

with golden hair like the fingers of flames

crowning her glory ~

an aura within Her aura.

She is the Fearless One

for She knows the Goddess ~

is the Goddess,

and so has made peace with Earth.

She is a daughter of the Universe ~

it's mother and grandmother in turn,

and Her strength is but an extension

of the Great Cosmic Source.

She is teacher, at service to all who seek Her,

and Her lesson is Her song.

Her voice,

the legendary weapon of the angels,

wrought in Her time to restore the Balance,

to bring Life back from Death.

She is prophetess, dreaming the future into reality,

seeing the Beyond, and what will come to be.

She is a young Maiden ~

in Her movements you can see how

Her laughter becomes dance,

and how Her work is in Her play.

She is wildchild, daring, strong, and rebellious.

She is fast, direct. She is cunning. She is free.

She is the fire of Her hair: a Ram-ess,

pushing Her way through obstacles and boundaries,

through disapproval, and the Lower Planes.

She is the spark and the sun, the star and the flame.

She is Dragon Woman, born with wings.

She uses Her wits to fly.

She is fantasy, the illusion, all-imagination.

A dream weaver, a spell caster, Her magic floods Her veins.

With it, She transcends the mundane ~

how She soars when She takes to the sky!

She is Mother. She cooks and She feeds.

Her belly so ripe with love, and Her hands so formed

to care. Her body curved to the task.

She is an Earth-squatter, a tree-talker,

every creature as Her own child.

Her fingers like tools for the dirt: with a seed

She impregnates Her dreams.

She is, too, the Great Watershed Woman, carrying

in Her buckets and soul oceans of emotions.

She is a benevolent one, the growth towards good,

the courage to change.

Her memories are Her gold. She carries volumes

of sentimentality, keeping throughout Her life

every person, every object, every moment that ever touches Her:

they are Her living journals of who She once was,

and who She walks forth to be.

She is an Ageless Woman. A Crone before Her time ~

look only to Her eyes.

Therein, you will find Her lifetimes passed,

Her wisdom, Her solace too.

Her thin, gray locks still striking out like lightning bolts!

She keeps secrets in Her smile ~

make Her laugh and they may spill!

She is Medicine Woman, a healer of hearts and spirits,

whose remedies brew in Her cauldron of love.

She bathes the flesh in light,

and soaks the soul in song.

Emily Anna!

She is Priestess of the New Age,

Wise Woman of the Great Council,

Daughter of the Divine Lady, the Queen of Creation,

Goddess of All That Is and Will Ever Be!

...This is the witch I see in Me.

Me, But Not Me (1997)

(Avalon...)

Raised to believe in one life, one God,

one chance to Be,

I did not give thought to other lives

which may share a space within me, inside.

I confess, I am no prophetess,

no psychic who sees

me, but not me, in a time

long before me...

Yet, I have had dreams of a land that I know:

a stream, thick with trees,

and hushed hills to call home.

This land that I know, with its

Rings of Stone,

its apples, and faeries,

and thick mist hanging o'er ~

I can feel this land in the palms of my hands.

I feel my very soul has travelled the Sands of Time

and Space, to bring me here,

to this who-I-am now,

to this pretty good year.

But, then why do I long to be whom I once was ~

this woman, this priestess, an old crone before dust?

There were things I knew then that have escaped me by now...

No, not escaped... just hidden somehow.

It seems I could learn the secrets of the Earth,

the mysteries of Life,

the miracle of Birth.

Or, perhaps, if I dared to resist my own fears,

I'd throw out my calendar and live

a different year.

Not by months, nor weeks, nor days, nor hours,

but by when the Moon turns

and when the trees flower.

Or, still even more daring, I could now declare

that I don't believe God is in space somewhere,

but that the Goddess now holds reign o'er my spirit,

and She lives not in space, but inside me ~

hear it!

When I sing, She moves through me,

Her beauty and light.

Her passion is my freedom.

Her pain, my darkest night.

And I could start tending to mending Her Earth,

to live a clean life all covered in dirt,

and vow to share with the world what I know

about Birth and Life and calendars to throw.

But oh! There I go

starting again to believe that

I am me, but not me,

and these are my dreams.

But, the who-I-am-now has dreams of her own,

and though they are different, in some ways

it shows that she, who is not me - but once was -

is still me!

Still looking for faeries, and still craving babies.

And I can grow food, and I can mend clothes,

I can honor the Moon, and I even still know that

one life, one God, one chance to Be

may exist for some, but certainly not for me.

It seems the Goddess I know enjoys giving me life ~

and though each one is different, each one is right...

Sunset and the Witches Take Flight (1997)

If you surrender to the air, you can ride it ~

fly it. Spin on it, chase it.

And if you unfocus your eyes, you can see it.

See through it. See through air.

There are no names for the colors I see there.

No way to describe the witches' hair

that billows and flows

out of the dark and gray,

the dull blue of the day,

into golden-orange scream!

(Do you see what I see?)

Their faces turn pink when they see how I gaze,

like a girlfriend, undressing, who reads into my face.

And brief, so brief, does the light still shine.

The gray overcome, and the women take flight.

They've surrendered to the air moments before night.

Their eyes they keep focused ~

so keen do they see

through the black and the blue

(with some help from the Moon).

And I focus, too,

and find myself here

in Mexico ~ el Caribe,

feet planted in sand.

I have yet to learn it's no secret to fly.

No running, no leap ~

just jump into the sky.

The colors will carry you, the light to guide...

Unfocus your eyes and ride!

Blood Moon

Blood Moon, gonna come around soon

I wanna get to the land where my body's in tune

with the tides of life, and the whole of the Universe

My tongue in love with the words I construe

I don't want you in my Blood Moon

I want the peace of knowing solitude

My food will not endure the journey for two

I pray the Blood Moon take me far from you

Softly, you step to me

I am not hearing the words

You speak so slowly

I make my peace

I whisper to you, "Yeah, yeah, yeah..."

Blood Moon, I come to you

in this land of sand and destitution

for my heart and mind -

the restitution for the years I've adhered

to your constitution

I bide my time by the Wheel of the Moon

as She waxes and wanes me full to new

I guess my healing lies inside Her movements

Will She heal me of this love for you?

I don't want you in my Blood Moon

It will not do to break myself in two for you

Don't ask me, "Baby, can I follow you to the Blood Moon?"

I will refuse you...

Softly you step to me

I am not hearing the words you speak

So slowly, I make my peace

I whisper to you, "Yeah, yeah yeah..."

(Con calma de mi alma

y el amor de mi corazon,

sur la luz de luna brilla)

Again and Again and Again (Will You Never Learn?)

Did this really just happen again?

Did I seriously let my tires spin again

for what I thought, this time, was at least a friend?

Fuck me, I guess. It never ends.

Though he hasn't said, I know this dread.

I know what it means when my bed

is empty, but my heart is full...

when he's not there to calm my soul...

God, how they fucking beg

and plead at first - they get in your head,

and all you know is right and true for you

becomes unglued.

Seal 'er up! Lay the bricks!

Entomb myself from all this sick

trickery of mind and heart.

Tried to do it from the start...

... but they all have an angle, don't they?

So clever for such stupid, simple brains.

Convinced me my fortress would be my demise,

so I helped him knock it down to size.

Just when the walls began to fall down 'round me

he chose to flee. Puh-leeze.

I've been here a hundred times before:

got what he wanted, and ran out the door.

Yeah, it hurts, I feel the sting.

Gave him great care. Gave everything

in my heart in his greatest hour of need.

Now he's full up, and I'm left hoping to bleed.

Older and wiser and harder I become.

I don't cry anymore, 'cause I'm not that dumb

to waste my tears on the men of the world.

It's the same old game since I was a girl.

I'm icing the fires in my chest.

Waiting for winter to help freeze my breast.

I will learn from this shit pile of pain once again...

he's just a man, after all... hardly a friend.

Resolution (A Song for the Equinox)

Now the spirits are close

as the year begins to die...

We are seeking union with you,

sacred mass communion.

Pomegranates and wine,

divine scripture coded in time

one day to reveal

what in you is ethereal...

Mother, I have come to bleed,

sweet life dripping from me.

This soul which you bestowed in me

is no longer lonely

for she has seen the angels streaming,

the gods competing

for her love.

All things live inside Her love.

Green, the color of weeds in my kitchen.

I boil in my pot the soul of my traditional ways.

I use my gaze to bless manifestation of life

in these times of spiritless in nation,

in these times of strife.

Yes, the spirits are close,

they are fast closing in,

and this revolution

can become a resolution.

Re-solution.

Revolution... re-evolution.

Resolution... re-soulution.

Revolution... re-evolution.

Resolution... the solution...

A Pair of Scar-Cross'd Lovers

Romeo came from Borneo,

an orphan, rescued from the jungle

and a life of poverty and a mother's shame.

Those who took him changed his name.

Brown skin taped so thinly to tiny bones.

They brought him home, and

rarely ever heard him cry,

at least, that is, until the sister died

of cancer - so young, life unspent.

From her parents' arms she went

and closed her eyes for the final time.

Her spirit must have brushed his side

for they said he cried.

He howled and yowled an infant's "goodbye."

Juliet was born ill-met:

her sisters cried outside the birthing room doors.

A boy, they wanted, nothing less or more.

Their resentment and tears

painted pictures clear of the years to come.

She would ever be a lonely little one.

She was clever and precocious,

even as a babe -

desperately trying to sway attention her way.

In her high chair, she thought, "I bet if I could reach

that cup over there, someone would see

and then they would know there's so much I can do!

I mean, after all, I'm worth something too..."

She got at the cup, tiny fingers clenched tight

but the hot cocoa splashed on her chest

and her white skin puckered and popped -

third degree burns she had incurred.

'Twas the first of many a hard lesson she would learn...

Romeo's folks got the notion that he

should not be alone, so back to Borneo with speed

to the jungle and stench and destitution once again

to find for their son a couple new friends.

A boy and a girl, related by blood.

They came and they rescued these two from a flood

of violence, and death, unaware of the pain

that was etched in their bones, inherently ingrained.

They changed their names

and brought them new life.

Thrust from darkness and terror, straight into the light.

And so, there were three, meant to be family,

except that new sister could not leave behind

the pain and the fear and her will to survive...

fratricide crossed her mind

as the years ticked on.

She couldn't let go, yet she couldn't hold on.

Afraid for the life of young Romeo, and more,

new sister was painfully shown the door...

New brother remained, and the three were now two.

Yet, inside new brother, a devil's pain grew.

Juliet would wander, as soon as she learned to walk.

She whistled and sang and found herself talking

to anyone who'd listen.

Take herself to the movies, to the library, or store...

walked herself to preschool when she was just four.

Her daddy had gone, her mom wasn't there.

Her sisters, of course, never once seemed to care.

All the neighbors who knew her knew, too, she was troubled.

She acted out in ways no child should ever

be allowed in a crowd, or at home, for that matter.

But neglect had made her young soul so much sadder

and madder than other most children her age.

Her family was certain it was all "just a phase."

At the young age of eight, Juliet met her fate:

a man in a car tried to lure her his way,

as he pointed to toys overflowing in the back,

and told her to choose one from the sack on his lap.

He seemed nice enough, he smiled and was kind...

(he was the first of what would be many to try

to get their kicks off of this trusting young fool).

His wife had been her first-grade teacher at school.

She reached in the bag for the rare gift of a toy,

but found the bottom cut out, and grabbed onto his boy

parts. And thus started a legacy to come:

a girl who'd be used by men just for fun.

When they were both twelve, at that moment in time,

Romeo and Juliet, each more or less both broken inside

found each other. And, maybe, they each recognized

the scars on their hearts which they tried to disguise.

They kissed. The very first kiss of their lives.

They kissed, and caught sight of the souls in their eyes.

Too young yet to know, understand or comprehend,

the two were soon parted, yet carried on as friends.

By the end of their schooling, they had drifted far apart,

had fallen in loves and suffered broken hearts.

Romeo and new brother, both handsome and groomed

seemed as different to her as the sun and the moon.

While Romeo's beauty and the soul in his eyes

had always enchanted her, she ever despised

new brother, for he teased her and brought her to tears.

Unknowing, perhaps, that she shared his same fears

of pain and rejection, and feeling alone.

They mirrored their longings for a safe place to call home.

For as yet, Juliet, held for Romeo, her friend

a love and a kiss and a memory without end.

But new brother, she swore, would forever be

the nemesis of her youth, and her arch-enemy.

Romeo was a shy one, bright-eyed, but soft-spoken,

while Juliet's tongue and her voice were her token

to starring on stage, and commanding the scene.

With her flair for dramatics, she faked self-esteem.

The years would pass by... almost too many to count,

and their paths led them far and then near, and about

as she gypsied around and he broke out of his shell.

He was snorting cocaine; she was stripping in hell.

Romeo, as a man, had asserted himself,

had flirted his way to the top of the shelf

where the liquors were costly, but the women even more.

The diamond he'd bought was intended for a whore

but she wouldn't stop hookin'.

And so he kept lookin' for the woman

who'd keep his mind and loins cookin'.

He dabbled around, and finally found

a soul/spirit sister who eventually wound up

bearing his son... the Phoenix of his life:

from the ashes of trashes, he vowed to then rise

and embrace the glory of his first born son.

A child's spirit could change anyone....

Juliet was a fucking hot mess

in that cum-stained dress

she had harbored for years.

A souvenir of sorts that would bear her tears

and fears of living alone in this world.

She slapped on her face and strapped on her pearls

and painted the scene with her colorful voice.

Everywhere she went she'd enchant with her noise

and her sound, and her words and her brain

and her pain that seeped through

everything she would do.

The lonely desperation inside of her grew,

and she latched herself onto pretty men with good talk,

who'd fall for her face, but even more for her confident walk

which was staged, just like everything else.

She never knew love, even for herself.

New brother was floating around then, too.

Had re-met Juliet, and easily made her swoon.

They buried their grudges and cast off their pain,

and devoted two weeks of their lives to each other in vain:

'twas a shame, when he finally left.

She'd come to accept him, and felt so bereft

when he took leave from her life

never to be seen again.

She had hoped, at the least, he'd still be her friend.

But away he blew, and so she did too...

to Mexico, for years, she started life anew.

She discovered her spirit and re-met her soul,

and began to grow into the woman we would know...

Onwards and upwards, Romeo and Juliet did strive.

So different, and yet so alike in their lives

and their journeys and lessons and tithes

they did give to the people and places

they found themselves in.

He quit the whole club scene to find something more stable.

She married a man and did all she was able to do

to control her emotions and fears,

a wild bird clipping its own wings just to hear

the "I love you," she'd waited for all of her life.

Turns out, she made a most terrible wife.

Romeo was still looking for a woman to love,

and thought, once again, he had found what he wanted:

a young, pretty thing to wear on his arm.

Trouble was, after all, she was too young and far

from wanting a life as a wife or a mother.

She left him just weeks before he found out new brother

had taken his life, hung himself from a tree.

He ended the pain that had caused him to be

divided inside by his two families.

Belonging to both or to none, or for some

stupid reason he chose his own death.

Romeo's heart near fell out of his chest.

Juliet was left alone once again.

Her husband abandoned her like all the other men.

The stress and the pain of the wounds he'd inflicted

had broken her back, and she had been sickened

with grief and the fear and the pain of her life.

The doctors insisted she go under the knife.

They sliced her spine open to remove the disease

that had crippled her all the way down to her knees.

They sewed her back up, and she went home to heal

her body and mind, heart and spirit, for real.

Confined to a bed for weeks and weeks on end,

it was there where she learned of her enemy-turned-friend.

"Oh, dear God!" she exclaimed as her head set a-spin.

It was most certain now: she'd never see him again.

But 'twas Romeo, Romeo who first came to mind.

"Wherefore art thou Romeo?" she questioned inside.

The decades had passed, but she endeavored to find

him, knowing he needed her there at his side.

She tracked him down, and hobbled her way, dressed in blue,

to wrap him in love, as he hoped she would do.

She entered, they met, looking older it's true...

but their souls in their eyes were the same as they knew

way back when, when they kissed, twelve years old, back at school.

And, in that moment, she knew just what to do.

Juliet took hold of Romeo's hand.

"You're coming with me," was her only command.

She brought him to her home, and kept him three days.

She sang to his heart, took care of him, made

him eat, and sleep, and cry and talk.

She gave to him all of the love she'd reserved

for the men who walked out on her, all undeserving.

Instead of her needing, she relished in serving

the beautiful, pained, grieving Romeo.

She licked up his tears, and felt her heart grow.

And he, amazed, at this creature so fine,

lifted her shirt and kissed the scar on her spine

in a gesture of thanks, and so filled with love.

The pair of them, holed up together above

the din of the city, and the smell of the cars.

They held tight to each other, as if they had never been

parted, way back, twenty years ago or more.

They held tight to each other as new brother watched o'er them

from his celestial perch, finally free from his pain,

and so happy to see these two together again.

A tragedy shared, yet their love like a salve

erasing the wounds from the lives they once had.

Hand in hand as they stepped, heart to heart, soul to soul...

First kiss to the last pair of lips they shall know.

"You see? It was fate, that first day when we met,"

Romeo whispered in the ear of Juliet.

And she, still reserved and unsure of the risk

leapt into the void, and succumbed to his kiss.

A pair of scar-cross'd lovers, at last released from their woes...

tis the new page in life for Juliet and her Romeo.

Thirst (A Siren Song)

You heard me singing, but could not see.

Couldn't find my lemon-lime

skin dipped in blue,

yet my song called out to you.

(Have you always been color blind?)

I clung to the rocks as you charted the way,

(I remember the day)

and I floated beneath the glassy sheen,

sunlight reflecting your image to me

in a watery haze. I saw you that way.

From under the sea I lured you to me

with a note.

A single deep tone

which echoed the moan of my yearning.

I was burning.

The fire, the flood of my boiling blood

came first.

Next came the thirst.

It wasn't enough to watch you sail by -

my sisters content to make you capsize like the rest,

but not I.

I changed my tune.

From the low, deep tone which had always enticed

pirates, sailors, and men of the sea

to dive, mad, into waters of death's certainty,

I sang high. You heard a dolphin's cry,

until you saw

me.

What thoughts crossed your mind?

I may never know.

I guessed at your eyes, as they met mine

below the watery veil which flowed between us.

The boundary of our worlds.

You thought you'd discovered the pearl of the sea,

the treasure of me,

and I mistook the look. Forsook my home,

my life, and family

and rose from the water to the rock, to thee.

The flash of my fish skin blinded,

my feet crippled beneath.

My body transformed, my cold blood

warmed with my love for you.

At last, you understood the tune.

I reached for you then, wobbling and shaking

as my new legs were quaking on the tip of the rock;

you were making me walk the jagged edging,

a shock.

I was moving towards you. To you. For you.

Slowly, as my steps, your ship pulled away.

You never did say or speak or sing

a word to me, as you watched me fall.

Blood on my knees, as I called to you,

"My love! My love, I am here!"

Only a tear. A drop of salt from your lashes

only mine ears could hear.

I watched you then, as you sailed the sea

to the lands of your home,

a nomad, so free.

Not me.

I have been bound to this stone

alone, eternally,

each day awaiting your return

to me.

My blood still a-boil, I suffer this heat.

A traitor to salt water, I no longer may feast

as it brittles my bones, and parches my throat.

No tail now to swim, a lifeless body only

to float 'round this prisoner's isle.

But what hurts the most?

This thirst,

unquenched,

for the love of your ghost.

Wrenching Wench

You cause me pain.

I hate you for your eyes.

Steely blue fixed gaze naughty naughty wanting love sex peering seeking knowing

Stop looking into my brain. Keep your eyes off my heart. Shy away from my soul.

I loathe you for your mouth.

Fucking mouth slick tongue lick lick gobble suck speak devilish coo grin spit bare teeth

I curse your twisted voice. I damn your nibbling fangs. I reject your lingo and breath.

Your skin makes me sick.

Raw rugged working hands hair curling tempting foot rubbing toes clawing throbbing neck

I defy the heat, the vapor in the ethers, the hot wetness, the magnetic air as you draw near.

You have made me ill. Sleepless. Thoughtless. Careless.

Bewitched me with some pagan pirate curse. An earthsucker's trick.

A flip of the switch.

I resent your advances, and detest your withdrawals...

I am stark-raving mad to want you so bad.

Poetry Re-Visited

The full moon energy still stimulating my mind deeper into the night than as is customary, I went to the garage and dug out books - poetry anthologies, mostly, and a few journals that I hadn't visited for quite some time.

I love poetry. I have since my teen years been particularly fond of women poets from around the world. As I leaf through these familiar friends, as I've done so many times over the years, I am harkened back to a lush landscape of memories. Different colored pens which underlined favorite quotations. Initials of friends and lovers who had come to mind while passing through...

(to C.E.A.)

"I know a man who reads all inscriptions on ancient stones

and who knows the grammars of all languages, dead or alive,

but who cannot read the eyes of a woman whom he thinks he loves."

(to C.L.F.)

"...I nearly collapsed, I almost wiped myself out like a stain

I called for you and you came..."

(to S.A.T.)

"... I want what world there is behind your eyes,

I want your life and you will not give it me."

(to J.D.F.)

"Si se estrechan las manos, si se abraza,

nunca es para apartarse,

es porque el alma ciegamente siente

que la forma posible de estar juntos

es una despedida larga, clara.

Y que lo mas seguro es el adios."

So many books, so many years. Lines as familiar to me as the ones on the palms of my hands. Phrases which evoke a stabbing recollection. Full stanzas that my mind accompanies with melody, in song.

"I love a man who is not worth my love.

Did this happen to your mother?

Did your sister throw up a lot?"

Poems of experiences I've never had, yet are bought to life in their weaving, and evoke emotions terrible and turbulent in me:

"Abortions will not let you forget.

You remember the children you got that you did not get...

I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children...

Believe me, I loved you all.

Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you

All."

Poems which I've read before, enjoyed and scribbled at, which in re-reading now reveal to me a new face, born of more recent and relevant life events...

"How I miss my father!...

Now I look and cook just like him:

my brain light;

tossing this and that into the pot;

seasoning none of my life the same way twice;

happy to feed whoever strays my way.

He would have grown to admire

the woman I've become:

cooking, writing, chopping wood,

staring into the fire."

Amazing... two hours have nearly passed like the blink of an eye!

Fair enough... I'll leave off here for this morning, with a deep curtsey of genuine gratitude to Shadab Vajdi, Michele Roberts, Charlotte Mew, Pedro Salinas, Alice Walker, and Gwendolyn Brooks.

The rest I'll save for another day.