for Maria*

if you have lived with me for more than a day,
you know I hero worship each individual word
in my birthed American English language

as is my style, I oft honor it with a poem,
but begin indubitably with a definition

Base
is such a word that deserves a recitation

for complex it is, a multiplicity of uses,
a word of many characters,
a word so unusual,
to the French I defer,
un mot plein de mystère

see its complexity,
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/base

a base is:

your bedrock, your cornerstone,
on firm footing your base must exist
t'is a groundwork word,
a keystone cop,
a root underpinning,
your warp,
your woof

Your children

so when taken,
when the spiritual
is crushingly wrong


sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

tense all wrong,
all wrong perversed,
the words reversed

You understand the nuance of words
so much better, and you
engage it
for now the word, just
enrages

Base


my new base
is
bad, black, evil, foul, immoral, iniquitous,
wrong and cruel

my new base-full state now,
my new base-less state now


this is my base now,
now that my organs,
cut from my body,
cannot be restored

Base is my life