Beautiful, & obviously deeply felt, Sheila.
(&, in reference to another thread, a wonderful example of the range a
fine poet has at her fingertips for different moods/modes of
expression; here the sentence put to, truly poetic, work).
Doug
On 14-Apr-10, at 1:08 AM, Sheila Murphy wrote:
> We first heard of shading
> hair by dark,
> transparent lace.
> The lowered eyes would feast upon
> an altar made of semi-gloss
> beige paint, with statues
> of flat cornflower blue.
>
> Humility became the flush
> of choice. Her lustrous titian hair
> beneath exquisitely turned
> silk threads. No prayer
> could sever fusion
> of life and beauty,
> body and sweet
> thought.
>
> I think her voice belonged
> above the flair, smoothing
> all atonement as if God
> were here with truth,
> propelled by some forgotten
> moment or small soul.
> She held in so much
> sorrow that I also felt.
> I cried from inside with each
> verse. She said,
> "My poor baby,
> you are just like me."
>
> Only now she is more
> nimble in the heart,
> and firmer in belief.
> Her intellect that
> geometric wisdom.
> Mine just thin, of two
> dimensions.
>
> I take weeks and hours to furnish
> an unfurnished heart
> That others might
> arrive and change what lives
> in each. That I might one day
> learn then somehow
> reach the tethered beings
> around me who reflect
> the veils we watch
> retreat from inner
> space.
>
>
> Sheila E. Murphy
>
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
Latest books:
Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
Wednesdays'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
The secret
which got lost neither hides
nor reveals itself, it shows forth
tokens.
Charles Olson
|