Offering other-wise

At night

I did not know love

in darkness,

as if sleep-walking and dream-

making could be seen

with a naked eye.

I remember warmth

on my bare skin,

raw at sunrise 

near the hibiscus

holding its dew 

until it too 

opened

when the suns first 

rising rays 

touched its clasped red buds.

The grey-brown finches, twenty-four

or more knew just when 

to join around the fire

of a new day,

swarming in sync

into the tangled branches 

consuming this light

that pried us open.

I remembered then,

when this dawn rose

with my presence long gone

a self perched 

outside

consuming the same sun

and sharing the infinite moment

of opening

to love. 

Artwork (woodblock) by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), 'Hibiscus and sparrow" c. 1830 in Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

No gift receipt

Give me
a dry wood chair sitting in the filtered summer sun...
Give me
a dry chair in the summer sun and a thin book of dense poetry to peruse...
Give me
a dry chair in the summer sun with some poetry to read and my blue cat upon my lap,
smiling.
Give me
a wood chair in the filtered sunlight with some sweet poetry and a fat happy cat along with a fuzzy soft peach sweating sugar at hand...
Give me
a warm chair in a little shade, some sweet words and a light breeze, along with a little purring, sticky lips from stone fruits, and the tiny taps of beak smacking mocking birds...
Give me
a chair in the sun, sweet poetry to sink my teeth into, a comfortable cat and a bleeding pen that simply translates all the birds' words,
then I am spoiled
in a shower of gifts,
sated and barefoot in the Bermuda.



Painting by Béla Iványi-Grünwald, 'Lady sitting in the arbor' (1903) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.