October 10, 2007

• Oh to roll in a bed of catnip and sigh ...

  Joy rides the wind like a shout, like a jolt of unexpected smile,
  the song you know so well, you sing along the first time it's played
  the way you say "like" instead of "love" when you first discover boys.
  Happiness sells itself in the market, and there's no shame in pursuing it
  or the family that grew in your heart and surrounded your shoulders
  with a quilt in a pattern that someone's grandmother knew by touch.
  Kisses taste like tears running across the wood grain of your desk
  saying leave the work, leave the busyness, leave the reasons behind
  and lie with your baby to read a story of pumpkins, pigs, and purple mommy love.
  Freedom dances when you're fighting, when you're tired, when you're sore
  and beckons you to a window where the light comes in on your soul
  where the most you know of God is the press of a hand choosing to hold yours.

  10.8.07

  And one that I read in the book I gave myself just for the joy of a new book of poetry.  I don't know why I'm so attracted to the ones with titles that sound like they are a little naughty, but I love the poets who play the game of making naughty nice ...

  The Orgasms of Organisms
  ~~ Dorianne Laux

  Above the lawn the wild beetles mate
  and mate, skew their tough wings
  and join.  They light in our hair,
  on our arms, fall twirling and twinning
  into our laps.  And below us, in the grass,
  the bugs are seeking each other out,
  antennae lifted and trembling, tiny legs
  scuttling, then the infinitesimal
  ah's of their meeting, the awkward joy
  of their turnings around. O end to end
  they meet again and swoon as only bugs can.
  This is why, sometimes, the grass feels electric
  under our feet, each blade quivering, and why
  the air comes undone over our heads
  and washes down around our ears like rain.
  but it has to be spring, and you have to be
  in love -- acutely, painfully, achingly in love --
  to hear the black-robed choir of their sighs.

  Isn't that a wonderful line?  they meet again and swoon as only bugs can ...

  • 11:51 pm
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