What does it feel like?
Plunging onto sunlit cold water
Green parrots fillimg foreign disiduous trees with their unending squarl
You’d never love a woman … I think as I thaw my hands on the Auger
There’s a horse on my grandmother’s mountain
If you let him, he’ll turn you feral
The thrashing of his incessant lathering and earnest beat of heavy hooves
When I look at you and see that same yearning for muscular motion, the tinder of musk in beckoning air
To break you open
Where the fight against ourselves is an insate red nerve
blooming ragged at night
He can harness your urge and capture the perversity of four flung desires
By the roughshod step of his weight and how
Turning against you he is a metal to your alchemical veins
No. You’d not be a woman I could translate into rain …
Your poise is for the male gaze, the ballerina turned by key, in spectacle
As you age I find myself liking more
The softening of your ferocity, how you became tired of competing and told him
Love me as I am or snuff yourself out with the pinch of two thumbs
I have no time for men who don’t know how to support a real woman
That day I saw you running wild eyed along the river
Your usual poise lost in the gathering of fear
It was the first time you’d tried to imagine yourself alone
Waking up in cold sheets no warmth between your legs to bequeath his appetite of you
I wanted to take you in then. Breathe your pain through me like sage and let you fall into my solace
Your beauty grows ever redolent with the passing of time, for every grey hair you lament, I find another cause to desire
I did not embrace you on that day. You thought me cold and unfeeling. Perhaps you’d known all along
And if you’d had the guts you might have said; well what are you waiting for? Take me, here’s your chance at last
Though both of us were too aware what words like that could do …
Flung to earth like admonishments and flashbangs
Flickering out, impotent fireworks without reliable fuse
For life is never the fantasy
And you were the fantasy
So I returned you, an unopened valentine
Red cheeked and hurting in vain ways, to run backward
Into your kitchen, through the hall, up the stairs
Where he waited. Unable anymore than you. To remove those entwined vines
And seeing you, the girl of you, still thick on your face, how your dancers body stood light and timorous in the doorway
Gathered you in his arms the way you needed, with the strength of a man
While my strength lay in knowing
Some love is but a day long, a life time of moments, cut out paper exposed to the elements, unable to withstand
The resounding silence of all that is unsaid
(an imaginary story of Rachel Carson’s lifelong love for her neighbor).
Yes to this:
“The softening of your ferocity, how you became tired of competing and told him
Love me as I am or snuff yourself out with the pinch of two thumbs
I have no time for men who don’t know how to support a real woman”
I love this, Candice! What a creative adventure!
powerful,, imagery, that line “some love is but a day long” had me , thank you great writing, carry on…
Indeed, there are loves
the more durable,
the deeper
for remaining unspoken,
treasured in distance
their star-crossed nature
respected
Reblogged this on cabbagesandkings524 and commented:
TheFeatheredSleep – Unsaid, not diminished
I’m certain you have read Silent Spring from the sixties? It changed my life along with Sylvia Earl.
She was in love with her for years but she was married – she ended up dying alone of breast cancer. What an incredible woman
She is so inspirational – such an incredible woman. Thank you for reading xo
Thank you my friend! She is one of my heros!
Oh, yes. It’s been many years, but one of those that changes how one sees the world. In a talk he gave in the early 70s, Gregory Bateson commented, rather unhappily, on how it took ten years from the publication for governments to begin to take action to ban DDT, the necessity of which she made so clear and urgent.
You’re so welcome. I can tell!
Indeed. The ability to love intensely and yet put boundaries on its expression and action is a special kind of integrity and respect for the other and oneself.
WOW!
Right? And then consider The Population Bomb, also published in the sixties and people STILL aren’t listening …. why?
We have several religious traditions that oppose access to any form of birth control (the more souls for God the better, no matter how poor or hungry), and an economic theory of infinite growth, and nation states that see more population as more power. Thomas Malthus issued the warning in 1798 that population would eventually outrun resources. People have been looking for a way to prove him wrong ever since.
Sigh. This is one of the issues I have with Mormons and The Catholique Church and Islam because they all continue to talk of us ‘seeding the earth’ with children with no idea of the consequence. How can they not see the damage this does? I don’t understand. I really don’t.
Ideology and theology have a remarkable way of blinding people to any course but more of the same. Part of it is in the idea that this life is a “vale of tears” and a test for the one to follow. I can’t buy the idea that we are born to suffer. Even though some pain is unavoidable, much is avoidable or ameliorate-able with wisdom and care.
Yes. I will be interested in what you think of my analysis of Candace Owens as she is controversial to say the least. I try to be objective and use critical thinking but more and more I am shut down and told I am a Republican. I’m not. I am an Independent who values being objective – which gets me into hot water 😉 I would say we are treading a thin line in terms of what we ‘sanction’ and what we say is worthy of vilifying. probably it needs to be fairer.
Where is that analysis of Owens? It’s not ringing a bell at the moment.
Trying to find a middle path has its hazards. I remember getting in a News Group back in the days before the internet about “men’s issues” and attempting to clarify what two camps, one saying fathers should have veto power over abortions, and the other not, were really arguing about. I got flamed by both sides in the “If you don’t agree with us completely, then you agree with them completely.” mode.
In the sanctioning and vilifying department, people seem to pick out something and judge the speaker on that without considering it in the context of that person’s other statements and their lived experience. Fairness is hard to come by when that happens.
Just posted about five mins ago
EXACTLY if you don’t agree completely you are somehow a traitor but some issues DO have middle ground! Most really. I try to be there when I can because otherwise I’m just an extremist who is not listening. I couldn’t agree with you more
I saw. I didn’t think I’d seen it before. 🙂
I remember the televised debates between William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal. They were lively, sometimes fierce, and rarely uncivil battles of wits between two serious intellectuals at opposite ends of the political spectrum, not politicians, both masters of critical thinking and unafraid of challenge. They seemed to enjoy it, at least as good mental exercise. That wouldn’t happen on TV now. Of course, it was happening at a time when (I think it was) Playhouse 90 could do productions on network TV of “Waiting For Godot” and “No Exit”.
Right? It wouldn’t happen now because now you have to AGREE and if you do not AGREE you are CONDEMNED EVEN MORE and there is no room for debate (true debate) and it’s very one sided oftentimes. Sad because without critical thinking there is really NO thinking. How things have changed.
Being right has replaced seeking wisdom.
you nailed it
So did you.