The Impulse

Sometimes words evaporate
When a bracing wind
Or even a soft breeze
Comes along to
Sweep them away.

Words spoken on an impulse, perhaps,
And in that moment, they have
Intense power:
Power to inflame,
To embolden,
To inspire,
To attract.


And then, for no reason really,
The impulse passes.
In a tick of the clock,
It is gone.

But the words, once spoken,
Once released into the air,
Captured by open ears,
Embedded into a mind
And a heart,
Live on.

Words set in motion a chain reaction of energy,
A charge that creates its own force,
A regenerating force,
One that may ebb and even become dormant,
But one that does not die.

So though the impulse that generated
Those words,
And released them,
Passes in a moment,
The impact of those words
Draws breath still.
Buried deep in the soil
Of a curious mind
And a longing heart.

The Open Room

An open room, rustling with hushed voices
White noises
Tapping and clicking,
And then,
The sound of something
Like a cymbal crashing,
Water cannon rushing,
Thunder rattling
The window panes --

Silent to everyone else in the room except me.

In such moments one can only focus on
The continuation of breathing,
Looking collected,
Appearing on point and on guard
To those around
Watching and listening.

But all I wanted to do
Was break through the brick walls
The shuttered windows
The buzzing and rattling noises
The fixed gazes of other eyes
And

To breathe in the scent attached to the
Warm skin of your neck
Like salt mixed with amber,
To taste the feel of your mouth
In the open air, in the heat of the late morning sun,
With the wind softly wrapping itself around our bodies
And holding us tightly together, so
Nothing could wedge itself between us

As so many things were doing so in this moment.

Stolen Lemons

Late summer afternoon
Sun baking concrete
Engine groans and acrid exhaust
Never ceasing as
The traffic rushes by
Our ears and our noses

You sensed that I was growing
Restless, ill at ease
In the stifling heat of the city street
And you may have also realized
The fear that lurked underneath
Trepidation about what was to come
What we would be
Together

Suddenly I felt your hand clasping mine
Pulling me across the avenue
Dodging the furious rush
And then safe to the other shore
Down a flight of steps
To a rusted metal dock
Where a small boat stood ready
To carry us away from this place
From the heat and the noise
And more

Once in the boat and moving through
The dark, calm water, I felt
As if the cares that had gnawed at me
Were slowly washing away
And the air felt lighter
As it moved by my skin and through my hair
And the city, seen in movement,
Seemed brighter, yet full of secrets

We approached a tropical maze,
An exotic realm of lush gardens
Concealing colorful houses like jewels,
Their roofs tiled, their windows draped in linen.
Each bathed in hibiscus, passiflora, 
Firebush and wild allamanda,
With palms towering above, and
Thick trunks gnarled with strange vines
And branches that stretched so wide, so low
That they seemed like wings spreading
Over the clipped, verdant lawns,
Protecting the tender grass with their shadows.

I felt your arm wrap softly about my waist
As we faced the horizon together,
Feeling the breeze against our faces,
Smiling into the bright sun which
Was no longer our adversary, but our guide.
Winding through the beckoning canals,
I felt so at ease, and even more so in your embrace,
Safe it seemed, no longer feeling that gnawing
Inside me, that prickling worry about
What everything meant, what was between us.

We approached an especially wild garden,
Slightly overgrown, dark and mysterious,
Surrounding an old, ivory stucco cottage,
Its walls thickly wrapped in downy jasmine,
Sprays of tiny, white, star-like blooms
Sending soft, fragrant invitations to us
To come closer.

To my surprise you pulled up to a
Deserted, small dock and beckoned me to
Get out and explore.
"Does anyone live here? It looks a bit neglected,"
I asked you, and you held a finger up to your lips
And pulled me out of the boat, into the garden,
Trespassing, it seemed, so a bit of a thrill.

I could feel leaves and branches and flowers
Tickling my arms as we wound through
The teeming garden,
So thickly planted
That the sun could only peek through,
And you pulled me on, to the center, where
There stood a beautiful lemon tree.
It was heavy with fruit waxy, bright yellow jewels,
Shaped like teardrops, each nestled in dark, green leaves
That held them like cupped hands.

You reached out to pull a ripe lemon from the tree,
And hushed my protests, for the fruit
Obviously belonged to someone else,
Who wasn't at home.
With the small knife in your pocket, you
Sliced this precious gift from the tropical sun
Open, splitting it in two, revealing
Juice and flesh and pulp inside,
And you held a half up to my nose to inhale
The amazingly sweet scent and
Then you held it up to my lips, and invited me
To taste it
While you did the same.

I cannot recall a taste so fresh, so tart,
So bracing and bright,
As the feeling of that stolen lemon
On my tongue
And on yours
A kiss that made every other sense come alive
And pushed the fears aside
Swallowed by the beauty of the afternoon.

Turning It Off

It was the sort of end of the kind of day
When it was hot and sticky that the fabric of your skirt
Stuck hard to the backs of your bare thighs
Every time you stood up from your chair
Or the seat of your sun-baked car.

It was one of those noisy days, not just the sounds
Of the phone and the dings of new messages
Coming from every source imaginable
But the roar of roadblocks everywhere I turned,
The ceaseless screech of demands and clingy requests
Popping up like late summer thunderstorms.

So much noise.

I stepped inside the bar to find that at least
The interior was cool, although, as the crowd grew
And people pressed against each other to get their drinks
I felt the sweat drip down the crevice
Between my breasts, and
I grabbed my cocktail and stepped as far to the edge
As I could manage.
Everyone was talking, rattling small talk, peppering questions,
Shrill bursts of laughter, hollow laughs really, and
Soon all I could hear was noise.

White noise, they call it, just background sounds that blend
Together to form a wall, where distinct
Words and notes
Are lost.

So much noise.

But then you wove through the crowd
And fixed your eyes to mine
And amazingly I could hear your voice so clearly
And found myself focusing on every word
That the blare of the crowd,
The clanging bottles and glasses
The babbling baseball announcers on the screen
And even the acrid roar of the world inside my head
Was suddenly tuned to a lower setting.

I felt at peace at last, no longer distracted,
No longer bristling at the thought of straining
To make out the message
In the noise.
You reached in and turned off the noise.

The Tall Grasses

I could lie still in the tall grasses

And let the waving blades brush against my skin

And listen to the softly moving breezes

As they whisper through the leaves

Saying how much they want you

To join me there

I could lie still under the afternoon sunlight

As it illuminates the field of grasses

Gently, at a low angle, creating shadows

That dance across my arms and my legs and my face

Like curling fingers, a message that beckons you

To lie down with me there

I could turn my eyes toward the bright blue arch of the sky

Over these acres fresh and flowing

And see nothing but endless emptiness

Not even the faintest outline of the moon or traces of stars

Only the depth of the universe

Where at the other end you

May be hiding, waiting, watching

And I may call out to the sky

To the wind, to the low-hanging sun like an

Apricot clinging heavy to its branch,

And to the undulating, tickling stalks,

To bring you out from that place

Where you mark your hours

And carry you to the field,

This field of tall grasses,

Where you would lie down with me

Red Cadillac

I was sitting with friends in a crowded restaurant
At a round table, covered with a white linen cloth,
Laid with gold-edged china and pristine crystal wineglasses
Filled until they were quickly emptied.

The room was spacious, cavernous even, and the sounds of
Conversation and laughter
Bounced off the beams spanning the high ceilings,
Blending together until they became a roar,
Waves of sound that washed around me.

Yet amid the roving bodies and the echoing sounds
I picked out a familiar face, a voice
That I knew so well,
Yet I was so startled to see her,
I could not comprehend how,
In the realm of reason or reality
That she was there.

Wearing a crisp, red linen jacket,
Pressed khaki slacks,
and
Gleaming gold seashells at her ears,
She looked as if she'd just come from the salon,
Her pale gold hair smoothly blown away from her face,
A smiling face,
Devoid of care,
Time,
Or wear,
Impossibly fresh,
And wearing a calm, knowing smile.

Of course, she could not be here, I said to myself.
She had left us, so abruptly,
Close to ten years ago,
Possibly twelve,
From a sudden failure of her heart,
A heart that had always been open
To me,
And at times when I so desperately needed it.

I admit that in the subsequent years since
She had left me, over that span, I had
Thought of her less frequently,
But at that moment, the thoughts and the yearning
Came rushing back to me so quickly,
Due to my rather reasonable astonishment at seeing her there,
In a restaurant wearing a red blazer and tan slacks, that
I cried out a tiny bit, and stood up so quickly that
I knocked my empty wineglass over,
Onto my plate of half-picked food.

She walked over, so gracefully and without hurrying,
Just as she always had,
So poised, so in control of herself, with that same gentle smile,
One that made me feel that she understood my struggles,
My awkward efforts to fit in, to succeed, to soar confidently,
As she did,
So effortlessly,
Or so it seemed.

As she approached me, she looked directly in my eyes, and
I was transfixed, and at that moment, I realized,
She had sought me out for a purpose,
Crossing a great distance, to tell me
Something that was very important.
She touched my arms, and I felt the linen of her sleeves,
And a warmth beneath them that was so familiar, and
She leaned in close to ask me how I had been doing
Since she had seen me last.

I told her everything.
About the falling backwards, the lurching forwards,
The failed attempts, the stumbles, the moments of glory.
She listened.
She nodded.
She looked again, deeply into my eyes, and she leaned even closer,
Her smooth, coral lips pressed against my left ear and said,

"I understand. It will be all right. I am sending someone for you."

I felt again that rush of emotion, the joy of seeing her, and I hugged her.
I could smell the faintest hint of her perfume,
A scent that reverberated back many years to my childhood,
And reminded me of those long summer afternoons at her home,
Swimming in the pool beneath the canopy of oaks and magnolias,
When she always smelled of jasmine and tuberose,
And always sat beneath the green awning, away from the direct rays of the sun.

As she held me for a moment, I felt calm and safe again,
As if the uncertainty of the past ten to twelve years had
Suddenly evaporated, and then, to my anguish,
She pulled away,
But she held my shoulders with her arms outstretched for just a second more,
And said goodbye, and walked out, winding through the crowd
In the restaurant.

I watched her as she walked away, the sliding glass doors opening
Magically for her, and
A gleaming, 1971 Cadillac Eldorado convertible
Impossibly pristine, with white leather upholstery,
Pulled up to the curb,
And she slid in behind the wheel.

As I stood there, by my overturned wineglass,
And half-eaten meal,
She turned her head to look at me one last time,
And waved at me,
As she drove off, just as
The early evening sunset was beginning its
Evolution into riotous colors
And then,
Slowly,
To a peaceful, purple, moonlit night.