Love

What Lies Beneath

lillian9 Comments

I’ve searched a lifetime for my soul mate.
I lie here on the ground, looking up, feeling down.
Rock edges poke through new mown grass
like questions nudging through my spine.

I start to ruminate, cogitate
mull over impossible possibilities.
This much I know, our world is round
and I exist right here, right now, on this orb.

If I could somehow push the earth
compress its latitudes,
would I find you, prone like me
somewhere, deep below?

Just a diameter away,
lying still, listening for my breath
through curves in our globe
searching too, looking for me?

Off-Season Romance

lillian13 Comments

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We waited
consumed with work
climbing the ladder
no time for escapades.

Now, in our winter years
past summer’s torrid heat
we meet on cool chilly nights
sailing into our dreams.

Your gentleness touches me
beneath a black sky lit by stars
until we blossom
in this off-season romance.

Written in response to the DailyPost Photo Challenge to interpret “off season”.
Photo is from Provincetown, Cape Cod. Muse to many a poet and artist.

Portrait Etude

lillian9 Comments

She was a collector.

Shelves crowded with knick knacks,
salt and pepper shakers, silver spoons
Avon bottles and beanie bags.

National Geographics on every table,
grampa’s pipe still resting
in the Illinois shaped tin ash tray.

And that was just downstairs.
Climbing up the wooden creaking stairs
revealed a musty attic world.

Windows, long sealed shut
looked down on a weed covered yard,
sidewalks where she drew hop scotches.

Cobwebs bruhsed aside,
we found two trunks, rusty latches
opened decades of memories.

Grampa’s morning coat and grey ascot,
folded atop her yellowed wedding dress,
fragile lace-edged mutton sleeves.

A seed pearl hat pin firmly afixed
to a Juliet cap with fragile tulle veil,
so delicate still.

And there, below the clothes,
the small white leather bible,
wrapped in once white supple leather gloves.

The final layer,
a stack of valentines
tied in faded ribbon.

Their loving epitaph etched
in a tombstone seven miles away,
more alive here
in this trunk of memories.

Love Becoming

lillian8 Comments

Gateways to the heart
change through the seasons.

Youthful romanticism,
tempted by pastels
sweet scented carnations
valentines in pink envelopes
a rosebud mouth.

Passionate eroticism,
eyes seek carnal depths
lips’ open invitation
rose petal paths
and pulsing tempos.

Love divine, a decoupage,
years layered on years
passion and comfort
within familiar folds,
your skin next to mine.

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Photo from a walk in St George, Bermuda.

Love Dawns, Envelops Still

lillian3 Comments

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What dreams lie within your mind’s eye
lying beside me this autumn’s eve?

Your chest almost imperceptibly rises
and flutter falls, like the owl’s eyes
staring strong and wise
flicker at a moth passing by the moon.

Soft sibilant sounds escape barely open lips
too soon years before, taped tight
received life-sustaining intubated air
machines whirred fear, invaded dreamless sleep.

My lids droop heavy, sleep demanding time
your dreams rest safe, secret till the morrow.
Our morning rite awaits, repeats these many years
Put down the paper dear, and tell me last nights’ tales.

Veil of sleep lifted by sun’s insistent rays
like my bridal veil, pushed back by eager fingers
you sought a promise kiss before God’s altar.
Not deep like later.

Kisses given one thousand times one thousand
over a world of tomorrows. Today we sit content
in time-withered bodies
wizened you beside my wisened self.

Amazed always, that you chose me
my soul complete, enveloped still.

In response to the Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge:  what does “envelops” mean to you?  Photo taken at dawn in Provincetown, Massachusetts.