She followed him out the front door
After his failure to give "a ****,"
Her lonely wail above him soared,
And he turned while she took her stand,
She tried begging him urgently,
"Rhett Butler, please don't go!
Old Ashley's gone as you can see,
And I've done what I didn't know...
Oh, Rhett, won't you come back, please?"

But he kept his word, let not even a moan
Gave no second thought to the dame,
Rode off to a life of wealth on his own...
And drove poor old Scarlet insane.
And O'Hara lived her life half crazed,
Yes, she lived but not very well...
Once you've lost at love, it's the end of your days,
And you cannot unring a cracked Southern Belle.

Yehudit
sitting down
by the pond
watching ducks
on the dark
water's skin

sun above
coming through
tree branches

I am there
next to her
hot sensing
her nearness
her perfume
her warm hands
embracing
her two knees

I love it
us two here
the silence
no one else
no chatter
just nature

I head nod
agreeing

the last time
we had kissed
had embraced
only birds
witnessing
love making
in tall grass

my mother
is moody

Yehudit says
seems to know

about us?

seems likely

who had seen?

no idea
she replies

does she know
you are here?
I ask her

I sneaked out
while she bathed
Yehudit says

will she come
looking for you?

I doubt it

if she does?

We can hide
in the grass

I look back
behind us
only birds
and warm sun

Yehudit
kisses my cheek
forget her
let us love

we kiss lips
my young hands
embracing
her young hips.

Outside, but not so far away,
Missiles are falling;
Early snow has settled
Beneath gray overcast....
Sirens in the distance
Send their low moan
Across the miles...
Echo faintly in our canyon.

Too cold for lightning,
We turn away from light
Flickering or flashing
Upon the bellied skies...
Don't want to think
About the thundering
The light implies.

Muffled sound and muted light
Confirm our living
Away from town.
Perhaps we are
Far enough....
These days, though,
Places to run are few,
And war is moving out.

At least the news has stopped....
Was sporadic
Then...
Stopped altogether
Now.
Almost a relief....

The coal oil lamp -
Her mother's mother's -
Burns a reddish glow...
Diesel's charring smudge...
Comforts us
In a growing dark.

Roast potatoes,
Rabbit stew,
Pickled beets...
No bread this time
As I uncork chokecherry wine...

And it is summer 1999....
We are standing in tall grass
Somewhere between Red Lodge
And Laurel along the road,
Ice cream pails echoing
With plopping chokecherries
Near black and hanging thick
Like miniature clusters of grapes.

We are there to beat the birds and bears,
Knowing choke-cherrying
Is the hurried work of many races,
Some wearing claws upon their heavy hands,
Others flitting in with beaks upon their faces.

And then the kitchen smells of cherries boiling down
For syrups and for jam,
The old ten gallon glass fermenting juice and sugar,
Stands waiting in the corner,
Later to be filtered off and corked away
In twice-used bottles....

Other years and other picking times
Lie bottled  in wooden racks below,
But we have chokecherry wine tonight,
While storms we never thought we'd know
Blow hard against the world.

A gray hippopotamus lived in a zoo
At the end of the Tropical Line,
Harry the Hippo lived next to the loo
Right by the Northern confines.
With his wide toothy smile,
And his great double chin,
He greeted his neighbors
With a great hippo grin...
Made friends with the deer,
Made friends with an owl,
Avoided the white scowling bear,
Avoided the family of wolves,
(He'd heard they liked to eat meat).
Decided to friend a great, walloping moose,
A challenge, his neighbor seemed rather elite.
Tall and severe with a beard on his chin,
He stood like a tree on his heavy brown hooves,
And branches of antlers stood heavy and grim.

"I see we are neighbors,"said Harry the Hippo,
"Name's Harry," he said with a grin,
"Since it looks like we'll be here a while, ya' know,
I figure we ought to be friends!"

"Bull" Moose only chewed a bit more on his cud,
Burped in the gray hippo's face,
Turned his wide antlers for well and for good...
He spurned the whole hippo race.

But Harry had patience,
Had nowhere to go,
So he waited a week and a month and a day
For Otto the Moose to come 'round,
And he did! And now the two of 'em play.

Our Harry's advice to you is be nice,
And after a while, it comes true....
The balkiest neighbors will have to think twice
And fall into friendship with you.

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