Happy Birthday, Dear Maaaannnnnndy, Happy Birthday toooooo youuu!
(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