Poet Mistress

He called

He called this morning at 8:15

He left a message

"I just called to wish you happy birthday

but I guess it's early and you're not up yet."

He sounded so kind, so grounded.

I pushed Call Back on the iphone.

Black Hole

Our family constellation
orbited the
Son

And now we find
the son was a black hole.

We scurried around
hoping he was happy
trying to do the right thing
Trying to stay happy
trying to stay organized
trying to make our lives worth
living.

We orbited him,
wondering every day when he would
get home
would he grace us with a laugh or joke
or would there be
the booming of computer guns
and silence for us?

We said it was okay
when we did everything alone.
we said it was okay.
We said it was okay to orbit a black hole,
Until we fell in.

Drop In

Raindrops from my roof
Splash into my cup
filling it with new water
dropping in
splashing out
rolling down 
reclaimed aluminum shingles

Renew recycle repair reuse
the chant of the old Scottsman
and the children of the Depression
Baby boomers forgot for just a few years

the old adage of conservation.

Just a few deadly years.

We leave you the Earth

in the language of New-Speak

Where everything changes
and stays the same.

With this rain
I cleanse my spirit
and begin a new life
again.

I Want a Lover 08/16/07

I want a lover
who is no husband
a toucher caresser
who cherishes me
as I cherish him

Who admires when I stand alone
and grabs me passionately
when I come home.

I want a lover
who sees who I am
and still loves me
Who I can touch anywhere
and love that touch
who dances with me
swinging bodies pressed together.

I want a lover who
laughs and cries and fights
and still loves me
as I love him

I want a lover
who moves to yogic mantras and
holds the spirit
in his heart.

I want a lover who knows bliss.

Dive

Feelings dive into blackness
into a gray wall of cement
where everything is frozen
everything is stopped.

There is no life
no responcibility
Nothing but work and idleness
Nothing but questions
about who I am
and what am I doing here?

Dear Sweet

Dear Sweet Darling 
Words in my heart but not on my lips

I love it when your passion surrounds me.
I love your touch,
your breath on my ear

I want to feel you again over me and against me.

You touching my heart, your body on my lips.

Princess Pony

Mostly people don't understand about ponies.
Sometimes people hate ponies and are scared of them,
Other other people they think ponies are cute and cuddly, like a big teddy bear.

But real ponies?  Not so scary?  Not so cuddly.  Sometimes, not so cute.

Real ponies are like real people,
they have their good points,
and they have their bad points.
they have their good moods
they have their bad moods.
they get grouchy when they're hungry or tired,
And happy just because it's spring!

The trick is understanding what makes a pony tick,
and what makes a pony kick!
Because even good ponies can be bad,
and bad ponies can be good.
It's sort of up to you.

Stalker

I only decided to stay one night.
I just looked up a number.
An address that has become unlisted.
A question for my imagination.
I had good intentions.
I felt a flavor of the town,
and saw that it is smaller than I thought.
My footsteps make ripples through the halls.
My seat in the office bends the universe into odd angles,
making pieces of it uncomfortable.
My friendship lies heavy on his head,
turning it so he no longer sees me,
but sees fear and not love.

I am nothing to fear.
I am not a stalker.
I am gone.

Normal Love

I found you in a dream,
You who followed my marriage through
to it's death throughs
A shadow, not of you, but of the idea that I could love someone
not my husband.
A shadow I didn't understand because without you
there would have been no marriage to him.
He only wanted me because I wanted you, I think.
The games of youth and passion.
The wanting most what you cannot have.

Is that true love? No.
Is that normal love? Yes.
Is this death of the marriage normal love? Yes.
Is this death of the marriage true love? No.

So where do I go now that I found you
from the dream?
I found you in your world,
as messy as any nightmare,
as joyous as any heaven.
I sit in the window and watch. 
Watching you dream,
calling out encouragement
Hoping for a chance
to step into your heaven.
Is that true love? No.
Is that normal love? Yes.

Running Away

Running Away from
A year of cries and good byes.

He left without opening the door.
He said he had gone years before…the children kept him here.
That he lived in anger and unhappiness
Under our roof.

I tried to remember a time when he was happy.
(He is so filled with love and compassion for his staff and patients.)
I tried to remember…when he held me several yesterdays ago,
I felt his love and compassion. Protected. Like he was my rock.
But he was unhappy. I knew that. His friends knew that.

When was he happy?
Maybe the moment we married in the Kansas log chapel,
Married by the Dean of Students who was also a minister.
Walking down the wedding isle to an Irish jig and Bach.
Because I hated, “Here comes the bride, big fat and wide…”
Maybe when he saw tears in my eyes, and promised for life?

Maybe on our honeymoon, sandwiched in the spring break,
and shortened when we ran our of money.
No problem, just turn around and drive home from Colorado Springs,
Me riding shotgun in his mother’s loaner, the brown Chevy Duster,
Through a fresh snowfall,
Five to ten inches,
Or was it three?
Our tracks the first on the highway.

Now I see 5x7 memory of that joyful March trip,
Twenty-two year-olds in the Garden of the Gods.
He jumped as the automatic shutter-timer
Clicked.
Beginning a new life together.

2.
--Do you think we’ll make it?—he asked
—Half of marriages end in divorce—
--I think so—I said without the certainty of age and experience.

I had vowed to be flexible, to change my infinite self to fit his needs,
For the family, for his career, for us, for him.
I knew too many women who were selfish with their own goals.
I would be more traditional, like women before me,
Like women after me.

We said in those early years, the seventies, when there seemed to be no models for roles, Someone has to do the dishes, be the “wife,”
Even when I was the bread winner in those med school years,
I did the dishes, and the shopping, I mowed the lawn for the first time in my life,
I paid the bills, I decorated the first Christmas tree.
He studied, and worked, and studied.

He remembers that he mowed the lawn, too, and did dishes.
I don’t. He painted the outside of our duplex for a discount on rent.
I tended my plants and garden and dogs, and being happy at home, if not at work.

When we could finally afford it, babies came as twins.
He was there. And there, and there. I cooked, and nursed, and did laundry.
He did all the dishes.
We both had day-mares,
since we didn’t get enough sleep to have nightmares.
He was there.

When we moved, I changed my contract.
The little woman quit changing herself for everyone else.
Sanity took a vacation.
The choices I thought I had made for him and the family,
that had left me feeling numb inside and disconnected,
were MY choices, not His.
If I was unhappy, it was not because of him, or anyone else,
It was because of me.

I made a different choice.

I searched, went down wrong paths, dead ends,
I found choices that gave me joy, in addition to my joy in my children and family.
And I found that I wasn’t responsible for his unhappiness.

He was.

So I let him be himself, and I worked on me.

I found that I loved him more. He thought I loved him less.
And our rhythm of closer together,
farther apart,
together,
apart…
Over the years was broken.

Thirty-two years after the first snow…

He left.

I started searching.
Did we make it to forever after?
We made
Three wonderful daughters
A secluded, wooded estate
A home with undercurrents that shadowed mental illness
A home with love

He made his practice,
I practiced on the family.

He still has his practice,
Which he hates, and loves,
As he hates and loves me.
As he hated and loved his mother
His sister
His father
The art world
Politics
Organized religion
Medical school
Doctors
Life

Who will he hate when I am gone?
When the work is gone?
Or will he have learned/has he learned that
Hate is the only enemy?
That the darkness he sees is only his own reflection in a mirror?

Monday, he took me to dinner.
--I forgive you for everything you have done to me—
he said after a couple of drinks.
Taken aback, I returned to him
—Well, I forgive you for everything you have done to me.
Relief spread over his face—I so wanted that (you would forgive me).—

What was that?

We haven’t seen much of each other since.
Has this year of running has ended?

I saw the Corte d’Azure in France,
Beaches in Santa Barbara,
Vineyards in San Francisco,
hedge apples and muddy rivers in Kansas,
a Hospital in Belvedere, Illinois,
Renaissance Fair in Shakopee, Minnesota,
Pacifica Graduate Institute in Carpinteria, California,
Killarnery, Killkenny, and Stables in Ireland,
a clear Stockton Lake in Missouri,
Rosh Hashanah in Dallas,
Peoples Unitarian Church in Cedar Rapids,
Anyasara Yoga, and
the Kabbalah
In the one year since he left.
And when I got home, I was still there.

This year has ended.

Now I stay home and take care of business.
Emotional cleaning,
Physical cleaning,

I have thrown open the doors.
Poised, and almost ready
to step into life...not running away
but conscious leaving. Goodbye.