talks with Amanda
coffee with Angela
each leaving
this expensive
flood-prone town.
Love and friendship
are lasting but
their smiles
voices…
talks with Amanda
coffee with Angela
each leaving
this expensive
flood-prone town.
Love and friendship
are lasting but
their smiles
voices…
to turn towards
to follow?
that which rises
inside you:
beacon signpost
illumination
bright sparkling
excitement
fireworks
heat source
enlightenment
joy
our world
more and more
authoritarian
we look away
yet a man creates
a new kind of school
based in democracy
a woman writer advises
keep responding to light
Oh, the lust I had
for that man of magic!
He was drawn to me too.
Power and Karma fused.
But the rite disappointed ...
and we lived far apart.
Email, MySpace, facebook.
Years of friendship growing
to include our life partners.
Confidences shared
in deep understanding.
Workings across distance.
And, just occasionally,
an affectionate exchange
turning ever-so-slightly flirty.
For Friday Writings #131 at Poets and Storytellers United, we are invited to write about re-purposing something – or someone. So I couldn't help thinking of this particular magical collaborator, a one-time lover who became, by mutual choice, a longstanding friend instead. We were undoubtedly bonded by a powerful karmic tie; it seems we initially mistook the nature of the attraction. Or perhaps – as my time in his country was short, but our connection both fated and necessary – our guides made sure it would be almost impossible for us to resist interacting!
'How many carats should I weigh this love?'
This love
can’t walk on water
won’t fit your finger
doesn’t melt pain
promises nothing
rescues no-one.
This love
sees with the heart
walks through walls
gives the invisible
a dream that grows
real roses.
From my recent chapbook, Letters to a Dead Man,* released
2023. (This piece first written 1982.)
For Friday Writings #130 at Poets and Storytellers United,
Magaly invites us to be inspired by a quotation from a book
we've just read. I just read the delightful The Lost Bookshop
by EvieWoods, in which one character tells another that a
certain inscription in French 'means that one sees clearly only
with the heart.' He then notes that it is a quotation from
Antoine de Saint-Exupery – which is where I first came across
it, in the book The Little Prince, translated as: 'It is only with
the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible
to the eye' (the original source of my allusion in this poem –
which, obviously, was not written for the present prompt, but
fits it serendipitously).
*Letters to a Dead Man is obtainable via my website
www.nissen-wade.com