I Couldn't Have Done It Without You!

 To Andrew

As a small girl, I already knew

(from instinct or indoctrination, who cares?)

the thing I wanted most in my life

was to experience love – to be loved, I meant, 

but was smart enough, even then, to know, 

the only way would be to love. To give it.

So I set about becoming Love. And on the way

I learned the many forms of love, the great

varieties: family, friendships, pets; trees and

rivers and mountains and the sea; foreign

cultures wiser and kinder than my own; places

of transcendent beauty; motherhood; even God …

But I’d meant, above all, romantic love. To learn

the all of that, I needed (I should have realised) 

many romances: the youthful, the unrequited, the false; 

break-ups, betrayals, heartbreak, loss … as well as 

the enduring, the joyful, the true … marriages,

divorces, lovers, infidelities (theirs and mine) …

Eventually, newly single in my mid-fifties,

imagining I’d have to be alone the rest of my life,

I encountered a deliciously attractive, 

mentally compatible younger man, and yes,

on offer, drawn to me too. But he wasn’t yet 

looking for permanence. And I was done

with sad endings, with a torn heart, with mixed

pleasures and regrets. ‘Next time,’ I said to the Universe, 

‘I want a happy love. I want my Ever After. No more 

mucking around!’ And so you arrived in my life – 

ten years older, short, funny, white-haired, divorced. 

(That tall, lean, sexy hippie, I turned away / turned from).

You and I, we married soon. For twenty years thereafter

we enjoyed, each, our happiest wedlock, full of spice

and adventure, laughter, and the quiet joys of the everyday. 

Until you died. In the year of your last, slow illness, 

we learned yet more of love; finally entered, mutually,

into the true Unconditional. Together. Answered Prayer.

Written to share with Poets and Storytellers United for Friday Writings #195: Revisiting Old Favourites. (A new poem for an older prompt: I Couldn't Have Done It Without You.)

... Since You've Been Gone

 

Lunching with old friends,

we spoke of you fondly.

‘Wasn’t he fun?’

‘Oh yes, and he had 

the best laugh!’

Hard to believe it’s been 

12 years already.

Written for Friday Writings #194 at Poets and Storytellers United, for 14 Words for Love on facebook, and for my husband Andrew, the anniversary of whose death was September 3rd.

Shine on!

How much light 

will vanquish darkness? 

It can never 

be eradicated fully, 

only lessened, brought 

into some balance. 

In today’s world 

light’s a pinprick –

so much dark matter 

crowding it out.

Yet it doesn’t 

take much light

to pierce and illuminate 

the deepest shadows.

Written for Quadrille #231: Making Much of Poems (44 words, including 'much') at dVerse Poets Pub .

Black Flower Perfume

 

…but it’s written in French, which

always sounds sweeter, more romantic: 

musical, flowing, soft … mellifluous!

‘Fleur Noir’ it says. The bottle

is bold, black, rectangular; uncompromising

and elegant, lettered in gold.

I used to wear Taboo, or Musk.

When younger, Tweed. When mature, Poison.

The heavy scents of amour.

This new one seduced me at once –

the aroma just as enticing, but subtler, 

more mysterious, hinting at magic.

Each morning after my shower, I spray

behind my ears, as all young girls are taught,

and my pulse points, as women know.

Then I add an extravagant swirl through my aura, 

and a touch on my upper lip, to breathe it in all day.

At last, I am my own lover. I wear it for me. 

Sharing with Poets and Storytellers United at Friday Writings #193: Tell Me Something Good. 

Written as part of an occasional series called Moments in My Days, which began in response to a photo prompt from a facebook group I'm in; then I decided to add some verses, and to continue this theme here indefinitely (sporadically) .

Tease

Let’s out

into the day!

Spring is flirting with us.

Quick! Dance with her now, while that smile 

stays warm.

At dVerse today, we are asked to write an American cinquain, the five-line form with a syllable count of 2-4-6-8-2, devised by Adelaide Crapsey early in the 20th Century.

'I Labour by Singing Light'

 (DylanThomas: ‘In My Craft or Sullen Art’.)

Well yes, Dylan, mate, I suppose it is a labour. We can spend hours getting it all just right, or as right as we can (seldom quite perfect). Even more so than prose: not only every word needing to be the right one and in the right place, but every piece of punctuation – every blooming space, when we’re writing free verse. The crafting, indeed.

It’s true. It is our work. THE work, whatever else we may do to feed ourselves and keep a roof overhead. Yet it feels like play: the most absorbing and delightful play. When I’m most deeply involved, ‘I’ disappear; there is only writing. This is what I exist for. And, as you say, we do it regardless of ‘praise or wages’ (or, very much more often, their lack).

I’m with you, too, about that singing light, ‘when only the moon rages’. The moon has always been my muse. As a child, I used to gaze on her for hours through my high, uncurtained bedroom window: a presence both magical and reassuring. I began writing poems when I was seven. 

A natural night owl – as well as, for many years, otherwise occupied (studies, employment, child raising ...) during my days – I have usually worked on my poems late at night, with the moon looking in at me through a window. It still happens, although now, old and widowed, I can organise my time as I like.

 

Once, when my adult son visited, I said to him as he was heading for bed, ‘I might stay up awhile and do some writing.’

‘Try to keep the surprises to a minimum,’ he said, straight-faced. I stared at him blankly.

‘Mum!’ he said, ‘You’ve been doing that as long as I’ve known you.’ 

September moon –

lighting my desk each night

in slow waxing

Written for Haibun Monday 9-1-25: Labor at dVerse.

('In My Craft or Sullen Art', which Frank Tassone quoted as part of this prompt, has long been one of my favourite poems.)