Pageviews past week

Friday, February 21, 2014

THE DAUGHTERS OF LONGING



All by Florence Mary Anderson


THE DAUGHTERS OF LONGING


This belongs to the night.
It has those lights about it.
It has that shape we love
That curls into our own body
As we lie abed, not sleeping
But remembering how sleep
Was and what kinds of gifts
It brought to us.

We are unable to speak,
Think ourselves still asleep,
Covered in the cream of darkness
That pulls on our legs, urges us
To dance if only for a moment.

We stand upon the water.
This must be the part of dreaming.
But we find we are water, we
Move through one another,
Scooped into an iridescence
That we can barely remember,
“Mommy, I was glowing.  Am
I still glowing?  I think I am.”

There is Saturday everywhere.
The morning leaks through the blinds,
Slides across the room and finds
Our eyes.  “Yes, you are still
Glowing.”  Right now, it’s the sun
On your skin, the soft, tiny hairs
On the body captures light for
Its moment and fills the morning
With smiles that will stay with us.

They are the daughters of longing.



Thursday, February 20, 2014

LA NOCHE





LA NOCHE

It bothers me
that the night
is outside minding its own
business while I am
in my room half
expecting you to appear
in the bed next to me.

You, with your brow arched,
surprised to have been
shipped across the night
like so much luggage;
the white roses of sleep
still in your skin.

I would be as surprised.
Hello? It would be like
saying hello to 
myself on this late August
night, where the voices
of dogs are so small
in the distance, that my breath
seems huge. no, hellos
would never do.

The dark just outside the
window waits for me to put
the lights out. It has ways
of getting to me, of opening
the dreams like oranges
and spilling these thoughts
of you all around me,
before I can catch a glimpse
of you shuttling across the
night air, not alarmed
at all by this thinking
it is just the changing
of the season that causes
these things. not alarmed
by the love of it. not at all.

Knowing you will wake up
far away from this room,
the night being busy
with so much else. with
traffic and dogs and things
of its fabric as to
make such journeys a
matter of reaching to the end
of the bed and pulling
another blanket up above

your shoulders.




Sunday, February 16, 2014

STARS LEAVING THEIR PLACES





STARS LEAVING THEIR PLACES

She lists well, that is
She neither perches
Or will sing, but coraciiform
And with catoptric eye reflects
All that is best in love and searchs,
Lively as a leveret
Room upon sweet room of
Heart’s folly, almost a test
To see what’s only guessed in
The lippers of emotions
That in their ruffling defines
The shape of depths
That lie below mere words.

The heart with its working,
Sucked up from the sea,
She sees as silver fish,
Forgeries of jewelry.




lists - an archaic use of the word as a transitive verb meaning 'to be pleasing to;suit.

coraciiform - an order of birds with strong sharp bills, usually bright coloration like bee eaters or hornbills.  One of my favorite families theyalways have a haughty look to them.

catroptic - not that obscure but it means reflecting or related to mirrors.

a leveret is a young hare but hardly anyone calls them that these days.

and lippers - ah yes, a slightly rough surface of a body of water.  I used to hear it on the Great Lakes but haven't heard it for years.