Destiny's Jester

Your voice,
like a gulp of cool, clear water,
after a long dusty trek.
A harmonic note, drumming through my skin,
outside in.
Pounding hounding,
through eons of dreams.
Who knew that a beloved,
once cradled chuckle,
would chime within so deeply so long,
resurrecting ghosts from my ancient boneyard.
Here were sensations
I thought long ago dirt buried and sphinx mute,
insistently clamoring
to stand risen in the light.

Once... just a moment before, whilst smiling,
you did as your grandfather directed.
You gave me delicacies sweet.
Into the glass jar you reached,
placing candies of easter color
upon my open left palm.
You welcomed
after I whispered shy thanks.

A paisan's pronouncement
accompanied our quiet exchange,
imprinting itself unbeknownst, in me.
Did you hear this phrase often?
I was teased you know,
on the car ride home.
Even your first told me she'd heard it,
yet that is another tale
for a different page.

What I recall though,
has shadowed me
these many moonlit miles since.
Always there echoing, quietly beckoning.
And so, I returned
to reflesh self
amid familiar aromas of memory,
all rung
by a soul resonating sound.


2004

Bertha's Gift

I am
a storyteller's granddaughter,
storing up and storied.
Found in epic myth
and a day's labor quietly shared,
I am all stories.
Through me, currents flow
and I spill rivers of stars
still unborn.

Dreamers dream a farmer's harvest
envisioning goods a merchant markets.
I am their imagined storehouse of plenty.

I hold dazzled the emperor's court
in exchange for my daily bread.
I am welcomed as circus act,
a curiosity of temporary diversion.
This, for those of lidded vision
who glance neither up, out nor beyond.
I am entered into their story.

Oh yes, dangerous am I
for I might awaken in shuttered breast
a glimpse of wider, untamed skies.
Tempting, I am forbidden fruit.
I hint of incense lit
where passion is life's perfume.
A snake eaten apple of knowledge
as yet unremembered,
I am phallus seed sown in fertile imagination.
Foretold to deliver with each breath's birth,
whole Universes arise to die away
in my singular story.

A pirate's map to buried pleasure,
I am spun threads
and woven yarn.
Squirreled to be savored
while carpet laid,
I kindle winter's warmth.
A cresting wave of story
that changes all with my passing,
I am tsunami's teardrop beginning.

I am the day's take and a life's ledger.
I reconcile accounts
to balance the illusions.
These, mere curtains,
that once opened
reveal eternity's listening heart.

I am
a granddaughter,
telling stories.

Eunice Marguerite

Today is a personal Holy Day.
It is the anniversary of my mother's death.
Every year on this date I plant a rose bush in her honor.
This will be number 19.

I acquired my love of gardening from my mother.
That and reading.
My sister and I both wish
we had kept the paper lunch bags she personalized
with elaborate stick figure drawn stories.
She said she did it so we would know which were ours.
Mom made great lunches with lots of goodies for us to trade.

Daisies were her favorite flowers.
"Clair de Lune" her favorite piece of music
and Joyce Kilmer's sentiments.
"I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as tree..."

Mom: thank you for the mark you left
xoxoxo
this is for you

Redwood Reverie

Afternoon shadow beckons
you enter into ferned glade,
enfolded in leafy stillness.
In silence, anxiety's edges
spill onto forest carpet.
Within these old groves:
mother, maiden, crone
move outside time, beyond trine.
Worn cares of workaday world
find no welcome here
in your soul's realm;
of Nature unveiling
her hidden rhythms.

Decay feeds growth.
Growth strengthens limb.
Limb reaches crown high
to descend again
through renewal's seasons.

July 2004

 

And so I begin

heart scars
tatted,
form gossamer lace.

intricate weaves,
these
threaded webs.

written as
vibrant hue and tone,
vibrating strings
thrum soul's symphony.

i make of myself
a tapestry of tellings.

thus this,
a spirit song-line
cast outward
in word.

october '03