Templates

Watching in awe and wonder
As a well-trained woman
Named Light
Who makes her living
Washing her hands
And putting on thin blue gloves
To pierce veins leading back to the heart
Asking people to repeat their birthdates
To prove they know who they are.

My blood is rich
I am rich
Still, like my blood
The challenge of moving
From where I was
To where I must go is real.
And the ventricles must beat
To take the steps needed 
To reach the bank, the grocer’s,
The transfer station oasis
Where I separate garbage from fact
And am then ready
To journey on.

The 80 year old virgin
Needed quite the shove
Though it’s true that she had known of men
This time it seemed like love.

It’s quite a tender story
I’m not sure of where to start
But if you asked our heroine
She’d say it was her heart

Or if she’d really let you know
She’d make mention of the gate
The one that yielded down below
On occasions that she’d mate

And there were all the offspring
Numbers one, two, three, and four
And physical penetration
Both in and out the door

But still the sense that this was new
Pervaded her whole being
In ways they say that once blind folk
Newly report they’re seeing

It started in a yoga class
The sense that this was new
For even those of 80 years
Can see they’re not quite through.

A tingling I think she’d say
In parts that long lay still
An opening of her heart and thighs
Quite vigorous and shrill

A pounding of the vesicles
An awakening of the senses
I’m sure you know at eighty years
She long since had her menses

She’d said goodbye to thoughts of love
She’d music as her passion
But this was more than notes or wishes
This wakening of her mind and fissures

A quickening to the words and deeds
That spoke of hopes and parted weeds
She said she’d never felt or known
The ways she’d laugh and how she’d moan

It’s all quite new, exciting, fresh
The joys she felt in mind and flesh.
Take me, she said, though surely shy
I’ve left clay soils, I’m flying high
I’m frightened – sure
Of course that’s true
But this is real, these feelings new.

I never felt such passion or urges
Nor sought relief from shrinks or sages
I just accepted this as fate
And I was sure it was too late
To think of love in quite this way
As to her virgin heart she’d say
I love my kin, I’ve let men in
But here I am, it isn’t sin
I’ve throw away all fear and guilt
I lay quite open on his quilt.

I visit the local cemetery today
And pick out my gravesite.
I have visited and walked at this cemetery before,
But had never imagined spending eternity there.
I go with my son
Who is visiting from the other side of the continent,
Speaking of other sides.

The cemetery borders conservation lands
And we pick out a spot near a young oak tree.
Not so close as to disturb its roots
But close enough to feed her,
Having chosen what is known as a green burial
In which I become compost
In proximity to the Earth which bore me.

At one point, my legs became numb
And I lost my balance
Reaching instinctively for my son’s hand
As he helped hold me up
Which he’s so often done.

We talked about gravestones
And made light of inevitability and loss
I visualized being brought here at some future date
Laid to rest and covered with the soil I adore
While dozens of crows called out
Welcoming me to the neighborhood.
Just not too soon I hope.

(c) brt 03/26

There are these elements and aspects of the sand painting that is my life:
Work, friendship, worship, love, sex, loss, women, men, Maia, my family,
Political questions, ethics, values, investment, expectation, reward,
Success, failure, accomplishment, mastery, longing, joy,
Engagement, stimulation, trepidation, the Word itself,
Fear, habit, breath, death, health, running, eating, other bodily functions,
Music, counting money, trying hard, not trying at all, giving a damn,
Being open, being hurt, helping, the unknown,
Housecleaning, laundry, dishes, cooking, shopping, driving,
Arranging baby sitters, writing, reading, shaving and showering,
Weighing myself, making love, talking to crows,
Seeing butterflies, horses, turtles, and birds in profuse array,
flying, scurrying, or dead in the highway.

I live my life.
I pay the bills.
I remember always the vast mystery I participate in,
This vast liveliness, this immense universe where goodness abounds,
Where illness, injury, depression, pain, and death stalk everyone inevitably.
Where by the greatest of luck, and some effort, I walk
my current, common, narrow, blessed, simple, single path.
Where hope, fear, fantasies, and realities whisper breezily about me.
Where time passes slowly and in the wink of an eye.
Where love that is strong one moment is faded the next.
The nonstop changing that I hold onto, adjust to, anticipate and hallucinate.
This is the peeling birch bark, snakeskin shedding, noon whistle time.

Understanding evolves. Understanding is illusion.
I am momentary. pleased, cautious, strong, ambitious, quixotic, romantic,
Thankful, awestruck, blissful, present, past, and future,
Changeless and forever, daily, divine, and never,
Before me, after me, regardless of me and mine.

We pause in the stream of life
The waters are rushing swiftly
We touch, smile at, and puzzle one another
We struggle against the current,
We follow the path of least resistance.
We are none of us the Grand Canyon, nor the Colorado River.
I have had occasion to love you.

November, 1976