Bare-foot in the Kitchen

I am flecked with the juice of pomegranates,
Bare-footed and listening to the poetry of ages
Read by men I will never meet.


This day is a clear one,
To my mind and my eyes.
I see so much today and I am happy.


I am grateful for the gift of rare days.
Peace is so flitting in these chaos times,
But I pad the nest anyway.


Strings and cloth scraps here.
This side needs extra down.
I cover the sharp sticks of life.


There are still years before I will launch them
As a mother eagle with her young.
They will soar higher than I, I tell my heart.


Today, it has been time and sight.
An eagle's sharp vision, by heaven, has been the gift
And my arms will, cradling, enfold it.

Patronage

I came here to quiet my mind.
Pages of words, here, form a babbling brook.
It weaves in and out of the shelves
Puddling around the repurposed catalog bureau.

I sit in a chair.
I sit by the window
in the room for quiet reading.
This was the forbidden zone.

Now that I am Adult
And can keep myself still
I have a front row pass
Adjacent to the man clearing, quietly, his throat.

Refraction

Your wide brown eyes shatter behind the crystal
Refracting purple and bright
Dimensions grow slowly inside you
It is in the dark and in the stillness
And you won't let me in.

Sometimes, in the sunlight,
Color comes out in the filaments of your hair
I get a glimpse through your joy
I can see through the dance
When you think that I'm not looking.

Clock hands sweep in arcs
Your shoes don't fit
Your voice holds tones I haven't heard
The heart in your chest, oh that heart
Is a hidden cache.

Dangle the key before my eyes
I won't flinch when the prism
Bends the light to hit me full in the face.
Show me the key hole. Turn the key
To the treasure you are.