summer was a fierce, curving green
outside the french doors.  i bow my head
in a kind of melancholy
that can only be described
as autumnal

a feeling between violence
and sympathy, an ever-growing metaphor
the shady leaves are in pain, writing shadows
of lyrical poetry
on the grass,
like a memory from the seventeenth century

a butterfly closes its wings
in a half-asleep dream
in the embrace of yellow coreopsis

the trees nod
with gestures of wisdom, their hands
gnarled with age,
their eyes gazing toward a school of floating clouds
swimming through a blue haze toward nothingness

a pale shadow leans across the savage green
then vanishes in the wind
my hands lean together against the rail
like two close friends sharing a secret

once  i was precocious as
a twenty-first century peach
sprouted from a homesick seed--

i hope one day i will have an awakened soul
living in a comfortable love
that transcends seasons and distances

i never thought that i was beautiful
until my husband said so: "gorgeous, gorgeous"--
(those were the first words he said
when he saw me naked.)
i felt loved...

it is quiet, more peaceful
when one is not admired
and the spirit lies listless and tame
like discarded petals
found the next day on the ground...

i lived like that once, like the lost
aging of the same empty sky.
now each day, the sun rises
lonely as a king
armed with many subtleties and rumors
of events past or still approaching

and no one says i'm beautiful.
the mirror is melancholy and distracted,
swamped by the worries and practicalities
of day to day existence as leaves shed
their shadows on the ground