Living the Dream

A good and gentle shade has sheltered sorrow’s patience
in waiting for a full-faced-sun return to life.

Here, in glade’s glad company, a repetition of righteous vows
have held me calm and willing to reside within wind’s whisper
that carries your lonesome voice from other verdant vales.

Until I am quite certain, that your head will not appear
on yonder rise, I will curl amidst this comfort
and let underbelly of leaves hold me in their care.

Oh, tender is the truant heart to eyes that see best in the dark,
and in this subdued filtered filigree, my heart is lightest
lain down for soulful recompense.

Dancing in many meadows, walking on water,
laying in new-mown memories, was never safe
as this kindness of my kindred trees who now
buffeting of many storms and losses, more than I.

When light does not hurt so, and I am wide-eyed well,
I will unfurl, like newly born leaves, to meet a sudden sun.

Tags: Beloved Be, Poems by Shewolf
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A loose leaf floated down
from your book of poems
onto my lap like a sudden leap
of cat,  who knows
I do not want him there
but comes to keep me reminded
how terrified I am of felines
and sudden movements I am not aware
were coming, no matter how they growled.

It says, “Your words pounce
and I am left mangled
like a little mouse with a little voice.”

You spilled my guts out where I was forced
to rewind them, to put them back
in some sense of order so what I am fed
feeds through more smoothly.
I put the paper to my belly
like a bandaide that might hold me together
until I can digest, on my own,
the gutting by cat-scratched fever.

Tags: Beloved Be, Poems by Shewolf
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You could weep a wastebasket full of Kleenex.
I have.  You could gnash your teeth and threaten
all manner of atrocities.  I have.  You could speak,
no, you could cry it into hard rimmed moon nights
and it would not listen.  I never.  See, I was busy
loving you from the very bowl of the Universe
and you never took one taste. You simply came
and went as the garden I have spent hours on,
as if a bloom or two would be enough.  It wasn’t.
There will come a time, when all my bouquets
will be mere flakes of memories and when I leave
you, I will walk quickly, maybe run.  You are so small
in all this, I wouldn’t see you even if I looked back.

Tags: Beloved Be, Poems by Shewolf
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You were reading Emily Dickinson
over the phone - before we met
and I wanted your voice like abandoned
crustaceans in tidal pools
want the slick lick of new salt water-
But, that was summer, and I lived
on a land-locked lake, held back
by a brave banking of meanest pines-
my room was dark but your lilt
lit up my dark places – caverns –
carved over time -

On small wings you flew over horizon
to putter to a stop on one-plane airstrip-
oceans no longer mattered –Any-
lips that peeled poems off rocks
like starfish to be made centerpieces
for those who can not tell
they cling for a reason –
to worship sun – safely-

Your lips - froze on cold cusp
of winter and Emily’s Heavenly Hurt
crashed over me in waves
bent on destroying dunes –

Lake Athabasca listened- hard –
only sound of sucking was left
when mist murdered your memory –
in a certain slant of light-

Tags: Beloved Be, Poems by Shewolf
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He meant to merely meander in the land he loved,
but, somehow became tripped up
by the scent of a woman, on the bark of a tree
and dropped to his knees in some kind of prayer.

I searched through the night, like a good dog
will dredge mile upon mile tail pointed to heaven,
like running autumn or wine seeping across a dinner cloth
seeking reason for being caught out in the cold.

Shadowy arms reached out to hold me back,
to keep me from my maddening surprise,
like one would hold a Chinese vase
tight to them, during a horrible hurricane

where that broken twig led me, half pale
from leaking moon surrendering to shadows
to the exact place where you had climbed on her
to become a soldier in some woman’s war.

Tags: Beloved Be, Poems by Shewolf
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