Again

In the bathroom mirror there lives a lady
I see sometimes when I brush my hair.
She has my mother's face, her aloneness.
Sometimes I ask her  Are you ready for this
fight, are you strong?  
Strongly afraid, she replies
and I reach to touch her cheek, stop just short
when I realize she is gone - again -
and I walk out of the bathroom
into the day.


Anne Curtin

Listening to the sea,
that dark looking glass
like the watchboy they ask
about the night, my brother,
the black mirror you see,
I know almost nothing about,
I heard a dirge of burning longboats
like the songs the dead sing
to put me to sleep, my death,
if I could tell you about it,
my Captain, I would but I slept
right through it, not dreaming.

"And all I have are the embers of your fires..."*


A Tambourine, and the evening is beckoning
through the distance
of time : a serpentine road / echoes
the colorful blouses and silks
the memory of love's fire
casting lithe shadows outside the starry nights
fat with celebration
merely a breath from the walls
of this weathered tent...

You were a storyteller on my skin
your lips like fireflies igniting the dark
where only the cold unseen
had gone untouched
until the blaze of the starlight horizon
engulfs without consuming or burning us

you are wildfire magic
the emperor stag or wolf or stallion
and the world is one kingdom
with many heirs
and bright castles

There is a fire for keeping warm
and a fire so hot to shape iron into swords
you are both
mines in minds of wilderness

Every camp we make
a home to hold the embers glow

perchance we stay and mold stronger roots
claim the dirt and dig for gold
place a hat and dub a crown
nothing lifts like wind on embers

when love is not around
life is without fire
no warmth can be rendered....

when your love is not around.

People carry hearts, not within the chest. Inside the sleeve. Love is a rare spoken language as the world silently grieves.