I will be a lovely slim Asian woman with a great metabolism who tans I will never get up at 5 AM to shovel snow I will live in some place like Italy or France where having all of August off is normal and older women are still sexy I will wear a bikini whenever possible definitely pose for nude photos and go skinny sipping, with and without friends, in all seasons, day and night. I will play at least one instrument have a voice like k.d. lang and never, ever wear pantyhose have all-season good hair I will not waste myself, body or spirit, on any unworthy man I'll win the lottery build a huge animal shelter always know how to end a poem
Okay, plenty of us like to look at birds. Flowers are swell, sunsets, trees, the stars -- all dandy. But let's face it -- it's all been said, described, covered by thousands of writers. What could we possibly say that would improve on the ancient Chinese poets, anyway? I concede that a few poets since Li Po have hit one out of the park, but how many of us are Hopkins or Oliver?
I'm a city woman. Give me poems with kitchen tables, toast crumbs, books and magazines, Grandmother's plates, postcards from Florida, baby pictures, Scrabble tiles, the smell of Sunday roast, the feel of the seats in Dad's old car, the Thanksgiving menu that never changed
what it was like to leave, how it feels to go back; what you left, what you carry with you -- all the messy, vivid indoor life of the heart.
“Within you there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.” ~ Herman Hesse
“Fireflies” by Michael Creese.
FALL SANCTUARY by Kory Wells
~ after Jeff Hardin
I slept in a room that glowed with fireflies, though it was late autumn on a frosty bluff high above Lost Cove. The room was a salve of spun honey and light, and a hundred little windowpanes gauzed with tranquility.
In a wide bed I slept alone, surrounded by pillows and books, by poets I love. In the night I lit a candle and a tiny string of lights against the darkness. They were a comfort. So was the darkness.
Outside I found an astonishment of stars, a clear sky, spangled and deep. How long had it been since I’d seen the stars?
This is how I fell asleep: my skin on soft cotton, my body awaiting the gentle touch of fireflies, their silent sparks. This is how I awoke: unencumbered and enthralled, the early sun casting over the mountain autumn into my room, casting through the morning chill a stained-glass chapel,
This lyrical gem provided me with a welcome moment of calm and beauty in these uneasy, turbulent times.
I especially love the “hundred little windowpanes gauzed with tranquility” and the “astonishment of stars,” feeling as though I was right there in the room, levitating in this sacred space, away from trouble and noise.
Wells’s use of light — glowing fireflies, starlight, candlelight, and finally, the rising sun — gives me hope, though even the darkness, she says, can be comforting.
I am reminded that in those instances when we aren’t able to physically retreat from the world, we can always find solace in the embrace of a luminous poem like this, or perhaps, within.
Jama's Alphabet Soup 