(I wrote most of this while doing my delivery route yesterday)
Much love,
-s
***
Grandmothers’ Curse
For all of my life I have been drawn
from serious mundane purpose
by my senses:
those five sacred sisters,
beggars, thieves, covetous harlots,
no concept of ‘grey’ or ‘middle’ between them;
their mysterious mother, the sixth,
the most powerful distraction, that of intuition.
(I find that the observation and care of humans
is the most elaborate drug of all)
These internal interpreters have served me the world
on a mirrored, musical clockwork platter,
flower laden, and brimming with choices of every shade.
I have always been mesmerized by the mood
and meaning of shadows cast by flying birds.
Reeling, drunk on any sound,
cars or crickets or the odd silence of still air,
I meander, dizzy and giddy and often ill --
the sickly sweetness of vanity and death
is never faint.
No man, no moment, no word or promise
could ever steal my soul away in little gasps
like candy stores or windup toys or river rocks
or lightning.
I am unable to attach myself
to anything more valuable
than the minute splinters of heartbreak that come
when sunlight fades from colored glass
or the promise of the moons’ return, for truly,
what could ever be more dear?
Only to be so broken
and so blessed.
-sll 08/08/05
-for AKL
