Interstices

[Halethala]

My new favorite, by Luci Shaw . .

Winter Nap

Winter afternoon.
A thick quilt.
A meditating cat
sealing the crack of air
between bed and
body. Under
the massage of paws
even the cramped heart
relents, blessed
by the prayer of purr.

[Halethala]

I could not seem to staunch the rushing flow of the unraveling summer, and so a string of impulsive mutterings merged into the fabric of an impromptu chance to vacation "up north". It wasn't ideal, but I seized it.

One of those rare, completely cloudless skies crowned the dawning of the official start, which required the fresh, clean pine scrubbed air be unimpeded as it poured into all four windows of my jam packed car. I am only one, but I am the Matriarch of a brood, and must bring enough of everything for every possibility. They were all coming later, trailing in fives and ones and twos and pairs.

But for one glorious hour, there is no one to grumble about the ear-damaging scream of one favorite tune after another, the empty stretches allowing a lunacy of "dancing" along to the beat as I drove, keenly aware of the rim of danger I skidded along in my recklessness. It energized me. It made me smile. And I was still sober.

The contrast of absolute quiet once I unpacked and set the place to rights was a salve for my jangled soul, and the small wrinkles in the slew below seemed to wick away shreds of unfocused worries. For another few hours, I simply sat. Just sat. In the perfect shade, the perfectly cool southern breeze blowing clear through me and off to someplace I didn't need to know about.

There was the tiny neon green tree frog trying to escape a little girl's palm, the warnings to "stay out of the shrubs cuz there's poison oak in there", the reminiscence of Pioneer women as we wrangled an aging camper into precarious position, the haunting call of loons across the lakes, the roar of laughter around a campfire so expertly built that it melted metal, a chilling chorus of coyotes howling nearby in the dead of night, the sweet thrill of fear of the unknown as we tread through a faint trail that was obviously rarely used, the joy of discovery as we gathered treasures like feathers and tiny glittery rocks and flowers galore onto our "Nature Bracelets" (a band of duct tape turned inside out on our wrists!), the rush and swoop of a magnificent Bald Eagle as he snatched a fish out of the water right below us, the hugs of little boys who have not yet learned not to hug, the burst of squonks and garbled quarks RIGHT outside our front door at the crack of dawn as a deranged Guninea Hen decided we needed waking up ...

Tucked now safely into the vaults of our memories.

[Dream Loxley]

Ahhhh.........as a picture paints a thousand words, so do your words paint such a delightful picture! Wonderful memories to dwell in when one is in need. Carry on making such memories my friend, we love to read of them! xxxx

[Halethala]

This just blew me away. My co-worker/friend purchased the commission of a poem at a fundraising auction last fall, and this is what the local poet composed for her. She gave it to her husband for Valentine's Day. (The poet is a local woman, Athena Kildegaard, nationally published. She even did an entire book of "Fib" poetry ~ a form in which the numbers of syllables per line follow the pattern of the Fibonacci numbers.)

Drunk on Your Love

amethyst: a- Gr., against + methuein Gr., intoxication


The Greeks drank wine
from goblets carved of amethyst—
the stone kept them sane
no matter how many drams of wine they tipped.

I am drunk on your calves,
your palms, your eyes,
I am drunk on your love.

Dionysus, god of wine,
the festal god, saw the tender maiden
Amethystos. He fell in love. Easy as that.
And he was drunk on love, drunk
on her virgin delicacy.

And wanted her, mortal maid, for himself.

I am drunk on your soles,
on your earlobes, on your bald spot,
I am drunk on your love.

But Amethystos, chaste and willful,
called to Artemis. Lady! Help this innocent.
How the gods play the mortals,
play one another, this move for that move.
So Artemis turned the pure girl to clearest quartz.

I am drunk on your finger pads,
on your adam's apple, on your lower lip.
I am drunk on your love.

And Dionysus wept. Tears of blood,
dark tears on the icy form, his heat, his heart,
his heart, her hardness.

I am drunk on your love
though sane as glass, clear-headed,
my brain quartz-solid, drunk as I am.

Thus was she changed
from white to purple,
color of royalty, color of loyalty,
color of love.