Three Beauties

Wanting to be wanted
Is a hunger that keeps you light and thin
It's been a long time now
Since I floated off
A maiden in the air
My scent turning heads
My glance
Pouring wine onto thirsty hands

Satisfaction and love's labor won
Have made me heavy and fruitful
There is such beauty in the earth beneath your feet
It turns wine into sweet milk

My breasts are no longer high and firm
They lie softly against my rib cage
And spill into my husband's hands
A shiny web
Shaped like a flame
Crowns my belly button
A banner announcing
That my body has also been a home

Where once I was smooth muscle
And shining skin
Incredible and desirable
I am now soft and folding
Flesh
Ordinary
And well loved

This mother
Has played the melody
And danced the rhythm
And has begun to discern
The Crone's staccato
Every now & then
A little frightening
But not unwelcome
It cuts and will make me light again
And I will float not in air
But down through the earth
Then up and out of Time

Hum

It is late in the Season
The Leaves drift now
Like ashes
After the bonfire has done
Winter will be here soon
With nothing to hide her beauty
Her aggressive stillness
Will calm and satisfy me
As the old songs rise in my heart
My tongue singing the sober praises
That have no part
With the glamour of warmth and sunlight

Clear

His Hand on my heart
Rubs away guilt
like so many smudgy fingerprints
on window glass

I stand under the leaves now
the light in them
So impossible-
Autumn makes the whole world
A stained glass cathedral

Days like these
I stand so still
Slowly and steadily
I drink and drink this beauty
And the story under my skin
streams out of my wide-open eyes
in tears

Who could know
better than I?
is there one who could accurately tell
what this love is like?

I am an exploded star
come back together
Spun into orbit
intensely captured and
teetering, drunkenly wobbling
Wailing my loneliness into the darkest corners
But it isn't my echo I hear bouncing back
It is the voice of the Friend

If I am never good,
May I be clear
And let me be loved...

In this lucid sanctuary
Every breeze through every leaf whispers
You are, you are.

To Be Human

I am no goddess
Just a flesh & blood mortal,
Skin clad muscle and bone
Struggling since a too early birth
To be human.
To walk some way
Other
Than the clear trod paths of beasts.

Crouched low,
Under the tangling thicket of my
Desires
And urges,
The patterns that come so naturally,
Ancient memory
Imprinted into
Every crease of my palm...

Here in the close space
Between what is & what is not,
Between reality & all that is false,
This narrow way
Where a soul is birthed,
(Is this not the way all life emerges?  A bursting, a response,
To restrictive pressure
Giving way just enough to allow
Progress?)
Here, the horizon is wider
Than I could have possibly imagined...

A sureness beyond my control
It is not magic I seek
No power over the current
No conjuring-
What could I dream up this untamed
This majestic
This wondrous?

My only longing here in this place,
One breath to the next-
Oh! Do I dare to?
Come ever closer
See ever clearer
Apprehend this Beauty,
Attain a humble understanding?

These bones crush to dust...
And I cry tears of joy at the absurdity.
I am no goddess,
But to be human,
To be human.

That is glory enough.