Around your shoulders, a mantle of calm.
A leonine brow, from which sprout thoughts
well-considered, quiet, slippery to express;
your talk measures itself in slow paces,
shy and sometimes awkward.
I chase after your thoughts,
antelopes followed by a lumbering lioness.
I don't believe you are ever wrong.
Sage.
The wizard on the heath, conjuring,
robes of grey green hanging shaggy over his arms,
the wind at his back waving his wild hair.
Sage.
A grey-green plant, long-leaved, fuzzy,
with a musky, dusty smell.
I hang its leaves to dry with the rosemary
that you knead into loaves of brown bread.
Wise man, healer,
quiet center amid the storm that is me, wailing around you,
you touched me once when I was broken,
mended the eyes that bled blind, stinging tears;
your peace invaded my frenzy, fed me calm.
I owe my slow breath at night to your gentle soul.
You lay your warm palm against mine
cupping my energy, stilling, slowing.
In your eyes I am only myself, and the world
only what is seen, touched, tasted: real.
In your eyes I am only a woman, though loved.
You have let me grow, unattended, toward the light I found best.
You are soil, water, wall to lean upon.
I am free to bloom. I shower my petals upon you,
a rain of velvet reds and yellows, soft purples.
I do not know why, then, I pick one blossom
-- my favorite --
and hide it for myself.
5/26/96