Beginnings

You hand me a crystal goblet
filled to the brim
with priceless wine
rich and full-bodied
fragrant with sun and earth
and vine-ripened grape.

I take it in trembling hands
wanting not to waste a drop.




















Spirito affine…look closer,
the goblet you hold
is not of fragile crystal
but an alabaster font
forged in the breast of the Mother

tender shoots
planted in fertile soil
need but the gentle hand of the vintner
and the caress of the sun to yield

Spirito affine…make haste!
gather ye oaken casks
whilst an endless harvest
swells on the vine

Spirito affine…be not afraid
for a drop spilt on the ground
is but an alleluia to the Creator

May I Have a Napkin Please?

Why is it, when I read your words

I have the sensation of being fed

a warm, succulent pear?

Sweet, sticky juice

is running down my chin.

Where's My Cave?

Dressing for the cold takes skill...a skill that does not come to me naturally. If it were 100 degrees and 99% humidity, I'd be your go-to girl for fashion advice.

I understand I need to dress in layers.

Question: How many layers do you need when it's 8 degrees outside?

Answer: Forget the layers, I'm putting on every piece of clothing I own.

Result: I look like a bag lady. Who needs luggage when you can wear everything you own.

Dilemma: Waiting until the last moment to go to the bathroom. With a minimum of 4 layers of clothing on, I wasn't sure I was going to get down to skin before my bladder exploded.

No wonder bears hibernate!

That's My Girl!

Miss Mocha...

demonstrating one of her many talents!

Damn It's Cold

Current Temperature:

27 degrees Fahrenheit

feels like 17

my goosebumps have goosebumps

Birthday Wishes

Happy Birthday

Michael Campagna
the man who taught me
everything he knew
about being a woman.

There's so much of you living through me, even though you've been gone almost 20 years. Part of me has never accepted your death, even though I saw them zip your lifeless, disease-ravaged shell into a stark white body bag. I'd like to believe you are somewhere in this world, living, laughing, loving and doing fabulous hair rather than lying in a grave in the cemetery where Colonel Sanders is buried.

Should you want to come back, I have your driver's license...just in case.

A Love Story

This chilly, damp morning we indulged ourselves with breakfast in bed. Although we awoke at 6 AM, two hours later we were still jockeying for the covers, so I launched a counter-offensive by getting out of bed, making a pot of coffee and plotting my overthrow.

I sauntered back into the bedroom, coffee cup in one hand and ziplock bag of oatmeal cranberry cookies in the other. Her back was to me and she now occupied all but a corner of the bed, measuring to my naked eye to be about 12 inches square. I gently eased into the space, drank a sip of coffee and opened the bag of cookies. As I began to make crunchy, yummy noises, she raised her head and looked over her shoulder at me in a Marlene Dietrich half-lidded kind of haze. I thought how fetching she looked at that moment and considered putting down the coffee and cookies for a brief interlude, but I was on a mission...to regain my share of the bed!

The cookies did the trick, she rolled over in great haste, sat up, looked at the bag, looked at me, looked at the bag, all with an expression of disbelief. Cookies? For Breakfast? In Bed? Did I intend to share?

Seizing the moment, I slid closer to her with cookie in hand, our eyes met and I took a bite. She shifted over to give me more room. I took another bite. She shifted a little more. I leaned close to her face, feeding her the last bite of cookie as I stretched out in blissful comfort in our bed.

Two bites for me, one bite for her. Two bites for me, one bite for her. In between bites, she looked at me soulfully, drool oozing from the corner of her mouth onto the silk duvet cover. I reached over and gave her a scratch behind the ear in the spot that makes her lip curl like Elvis.

And that my friends, is how you reclaim the bed from the family dog.

Other People's Words

I'm reading a collection of works by Henry David Thoreau. At the moment, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, is the text in which I am consumed. Last night while reading the closing pages, I encountered this passage:

He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair. That night was the turning-point in the season. We had gone to bed in summer and we awoke in autumn; for summer passes into autumn in some unimaginable point of time, like the turning of a leaf.

Thoreau is literally speaking of falling asleep on the shores of the Merrimack River and awakening to the crisp call of the first day of fall, but read in the context of today's debates around our next steps in Iraq, I couldn't help but feel the relevance.

Continuum

How can it be
flame and smoke rise untethered,
yet ember and ash cannot?

Flame leaps with ease in robes
of orange, blue, scarlet and purple,
while its kinsman, the ember
lies smoldering and glowing,
a pulsing red soul
writhing on a soft gray bed of ash.

Resurrection is but a breath away
but alas, so is the ghost of yesterday’s ember,
so is the darkness of the ash bin.

Its hunger will be satisfied
for the bellows which fueled the fire
lie cast off among a litter of tools
once forged from fire,
once wielded with expert hands,
once supple, now dry and cracked.

The blow of the hammer has been silenced.
The fire in the breast consumed.
The ashen handprint on the hearth swept clean.

Flint will again strike stone,
spark will again ignite kindling…

Continuum.



This poem was penned and offered this 11th day of March, 2007, with respect for and honor of Rick Pride. Your unwavering pursuit of answers to the looming, pulsing questions perplexes, annoys and inspires me.

Thank you.

Scraps of Wisdom.13

"How far you go in life
depends on your being tender with the young,
compassionate with the aged,
sympathetic with the striving,
and tolerant of the weak AND the strong.

Because someday in life,
you will have been all of these.”

Dr. Geo. W. Carver

Ouch