saffron & amber
but they are sparce this year
set like the random jewel
amid limbs stiff,
reaching, searching
framing them in borders
of slate & of honey brown.
Hope seems to hover
in the same
waivering manner –
not easily found
but strikingly beautiful
when it is
discovered.
11-12-10
8:25am @ Edgehill Café
to meet with Hillary
Laughter all around
encircling
lilting
gently lapping among china
cup meeting saucer
and the soft chime
of teaspoons stirring.
Voices caress my ear
with contented tones
friend close to friend
and also introductions and geniality.
Somewhere between a cup full
and a cup empty
my heart rate quiets
and slows
to calm.
11-10-10
1:16pm
Savannah Tearoom
It fell -Relentless.
Soaking.
Pitiless.
It drenched my clothes and hair
and filled my shoes.
Once inside my car
it obscured my view
and resounded like
the myriad faults and excuses and fears
that encroached,
swamped,
and threatened to lift roots up
from depth and strength
and bring down
oak firm security
with a towering crash.
But as I listened -
and waited -
I realized that the deluge
was from Him.
Complete.
Healing.
Filling.
Merciful.
Satisfying.
Compassionate.
At the end,
when the rainbow
emerged,
and shimmered across the sky,
and I stood recovered -
I found myself filled with thankfulness
that He remembers
the small defenseless creature
that is
me.
Crossing the road
is always
more difficult
than just gazing down
its limits.
A storm pelts the horizon’s rim,
(I can see the lightning
from here.)
and a remote windchime is carried
to my tingling ears.
Somewhere in this world -
when my singular, precious
time with you was over -
you were led
(probably not with docile steps)
to sheltered moonlit stalls,
where your blue eyes
would peer from the darkness
like sparks
in a furnace.
How often did I laugh,
or just peer cautiously…
wonderingly…
into their icy-white-blue
abyss?
Your coal-black mane
in tangled, hopeless snarls
upon your neck,
soaked up many a tear
and kept me in balance
on many bareback rides -
slipping under wind-stroked
sun-washed
sweet-scented Carolina pines.
No other creature
reacted as you did -
with as much fervor
or head-tossed retaliation to life.
I long stretch my fingers out
to touch you -
to wrap my arms in abandon
around your supple, burnished neck.
I miss those moments
when I knew you were mine.
Shawnee,...
And it seems so long ago.
My heart began to beat loudly and I found that my mouth had become dry.
“I want you to make a promise to me too. I want you to marry Matthew when I’m gone.”...
She said it simply and in a low tone that told me of its pain at another having him, combined with the agony of knowing him alone. Her hands moved slowly over her stomach and I knew that there was also no other that she would rather mother her child.
I sat there speechless— in torment myself. I had never refused Evaleah anything.
The rain began and I took my shawl from my shoulders and covered my head as I continued to hurry toward Evaleah’s cottage. I knew that the miller’s wife, old Mother Trask, would be keeping the baby until I arrived. I wondered where Matthew Craigg would be.
The rain had turned into a downpour as I ran the final stretch under the oaks surrounding the cottage and through its oval-topped door. A modest fire burned at the hearth and my dear friend’s husband lay back in a chair asleep in obvious exhaustion. His face bore none of the hard lines that it held in wakefulness. There were none of the sharp, black glances that his dark eyes could send, only a worn, grief-stunned weariness that pervaded his features as he slept.
He wore a clean, worn black suit and I could see that his normally unkempt hair had been washed and combed. The clock on the mantle said that there were two more hours until they would cover Evaleah in the village churchyard. I looked for Mother Trask, but heard no one else in the cottage. Looking around the parlor, I wondered where the baby might be.
Slipping past Matthew, I discovered the baby in the bedroom, surrounded by pillows on the large cast-iron bedstead. She slept, like her father, in the same troubled sleep, as if she knew that her mother had been taken from her.
Rain pelted the thick leaded windows and I sat by the baby and stroked her short golden curls. On her pillow I saw stitched Evalise— a combination of our names. Tears tumbled onto the carefully prepared baby’s coverlet and I grieved for the gentle spirit that had gone.
For the first time I looked up and saw the headboard that Evaleah’s husband had fashioned from his craft. My breath caught in my throat and I studied it in wonderment.
The sides curved up as if they were wandering vines that sent out small shoots and sprigs of buds. They curled in gently crisscrossing spirals and I stared in amazement realizing the artistry that made up their detail. The buds were smooth and glowed with the buffing that they had received. The leaves curled in different lengths, some as in soft new growth and some as if they were heavy-laden with dew in the early morning. They all curved and intertwined until they met in the center of the headboard in a perfectly formed wild rose.
This was a work that had been fashioned out of love and out of a devotion that made me hold my breath as I followed the molded iron petals with my fingertips. Evaleah had seen a heart that no one else had even imagined.
Evalise stirred and woke. Her velvet-blue eyes met mine and I pulled her from the covers to hold her close to my heart. I looked up and saw that Matthew watched me from the bedroom door.
“It’s time. Mrs. Trask is here to keep the child while we are gone.”
I stood up, wrapped the baby tightly into her blankets again and followed the tall figure in front of me to the open doorway of the cottage. I stood for a moment and looked up into those dark, fierce eyes.
Matthew held out his rough, worn hand and, without hesitating, I took it.
