Wenn es nur einmal so ganz stille ware

If only for once it were still.
If the not quite right and the why this
could be muted, and the neighbor's laughter,
and the static my senses make-
if all of it didn't keep me from coming awake

Then in one vast thousandfold thought
I could think you up to where thinking ends.

I could possess you,
even for the brevity of a smile,
to offer you
to all that lives,
in gladness.

Rainer Maria Rilke

My Family Quilt

sepia-colored memories
laced with the hint of something more
I am my mother's third daughter
my father's baby girl

recollections are fuzzy
softly altered by the stretch of many years
lined in a mind that knows
some truths hide behind old ideas

I know there's a place for me
threaded behind two sisters
before one brother

my patch on this quilt
is woven delicately between generations of me
present, past and beyond

and when I'm gone, my thread will remain
as a faded promise to my sons and daughters
that on this quilt they will belong

as first and forever
I belonged

The Roots of Twenty-Four

I am rich with the history of my forefathers
their blood is my blood
their pain, sorrow, joy
mine

I am the compounded noise of a raging past
water thick and heavy
with sweat from their toil

I live in the bosom of yesterday
tucked within a mind that says never
but a body that says why not

I come here to seek truth
and in truth find freedom

But, when I breathe, it's with the breath of a thousand years

found in the heartbeat of just twenty-four

Distracted by Calla Lilies

Six, white Calla Lilies sit in a drinking glass on my kitchen table. A ribbon tied loosely 'round their thick stalks in a half-hearted effort to create a casually 'artistic' arrangement. They are the, oh-so-pretty, souvenir of my fourth walk down the aisle. As a bridesmaid.

I hope they survive for a while, because they are tragically beautiful. Or beautifully tragic, perhaps.

They seem to know that they're doomed to whither in the house of an 'always a bridesmaid....' who doesn't even own a proper vase. What a tragically beautiful fate for an 'oh-so-pretty' bunch of Calla Lilies.

I adore Calla Lilies. Truly. Adore. If I could dare to pick a 'most favorite' flower, I might be inclined to choose them for their exceeding sensuality and graceful, feminine curves. For some reason, the sight of a Calla Lily always brings to mind a poem by Lucille Clifton called Homage to My Hips-- which is probably a silly connection, but one that, most likely, stems (HA...'stems') from my mind's tendency to liken the curve of a Calla Lily to the curve of a woman's hip.

...there is a girl inside/she is randy as a wolf/she will not walk away/and leave these bones/to an old woman...

I didn't intend to write a homage to Calla Lilies-- or hips, for that matter--but here I am, 3.5 paragraphs in, and that's all I've done.

Perhaps, I'll go with it.

...and her lovers will harvest/honey and thyme/and the woods will be wild/with the damn wonder of it.

On second thought, I think I'll leave it at that.