Mid-life

Leaf to coal to diamond;

seed containing root, leaf, fruit;

rose in the hip about to begin again;

jam, wine, yeast; honey in hexagons;

one egg groomed to be queen:

O Transformer! Mother of Energy!

Take me. Bake me in Your kiln!

Change me!

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My life has found its promise,

like a berry wild and sweet.

Your friendship makes me ready

to be friends with all I meet.

Timeless sorrow, deepest joy,

the wild wind billows my heart full,

and I laugh to feel it pull.

From the comfort of a family room

I open my breast to the sun.

Like a seed in the wind,

my fullness finds

a journey just begun.

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From the yeast of dream, grain of truth,

kneaded by bony-fingered Reverie

with Her salt tears...

dawning rips night asunder,

to bake the risen bread of poetry!

Who will break bread with me,

to grind, between our tandem teeth,

nourishing Wonder’s eternal kernel?

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The river flowing through our veins

runs deep and bright and still and clear.

In those moments when I still to feel its flowing

I know that you and I are one within a One

deeper than all knowing.

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I reach now for your hand knowing it is there,

our love a freedom and a bond we share,

bracing us in the wind, structure not crutch,

knowing your feelings, playful in our touch,

knowing that you can read my feelings true.

So strong, so sure, the growing years renew.

With my vision and with yours,

I twice-sift what I see

beholding: a shared reality.

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Surely it is not greed to want to be

with art as I am with you,

feeling this need, this lust for creativity!

I want to court, to touch, to wed,

embrace in waking and within my bed

these visions of making shaping in my head!

My eyes weave intricate cloth

of the lines of sea and sky.

I take the pulse of mountains dancing by.

I understand these days:

a waking into dream,

my life opening up, closing without a seam.

This new love will be yours as well,

because our lives are one,

not two suns, but a brighter, clearer sun.

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Butterfly reality

opening up its other wing:

iridescent, bi-valve, mirroring,

mother-of-pearled, another world!

Heads/tails, and figure/ground,

maid/crone:

my life has flipped!

Now I taste my days two-lipped!

On this path, on this returning trip,

I need two hands to keep my grip,

two feet grounded, so I don’t slip,

two wings to spread apart

to lift me mind and heart.

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Love does not always grow

on family trees. 

Sometimes it must be made,

hand-crafted, child of art.

Sometimes it must be conjured,

danced conjugal into existence.

Our heads, hearts, lungs, and sex

are given to us hollow,

hungry skin stretched taut

to receive the drumming

of celebration.

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If we can’t meet where I am,

let’s meet

where pure water

wells from the earth,

channel for the Unknowable.

© Tamara Rasmussen 2018