A Woman's View of Cattails

by SL Ruth

I sit alone on the windswept deck
my rocker soothing the emptiness
in my heart; inches from my bare feet
wild cattails, rooted at water's edge,
browned velvet cylindrical tubes,
shimmy immodestly as they launch
wispy, fertile spores in the rosy
blush of the rising sun, sowing their
seeds on the glow of the pink morning.

Sun warms, penetrates my cold body
and the evaporating mist rises
lifting off the glistening lake;
thick tufts of virgin cat fur play
dancing on thermals, swirling, spinning,
like passengers on a carousel
riding rhythms from a calliope.

Fuzzed spermatophytes, seek new life,
hesitate, almost flirting with earth
before commencing the spiral that
sends them plummeting down, softly down,
toward the embracing flush of earth;
soldiers projectiled on one single
flight in tiny and frayed hot air
balloons that drift, drift, drift then alight

Licking and coating all the wet world
with a downy gauze of pristene white,
the feathered, fairy seeds pirouette,
stick in my hair, and on my cheeks,
on gentle currents of dark water,
roughened cypress bark, or mossy bank,
in the beautiful ritual born
of summer's heat, and a natural
passion that leaves me breathless.

The wanton cattails sway seductively
with no signs of fear, or loneliness.
I see all, rocking still, as a fresh
breeze lifts the ruffle on my nightgown
to bare my lily knees and impart
an envy that leaves me a warmed,
but reluctant witness of life's
eternal round even for cattails.

A Young Girl's Voyage

by SL Ruth

Blue faded flowers curl and lap at a chair
anchored to a rug in the young girl's room;
she's an island adrift on a sea of despair,
she sits without rudder, alone and marooned.
She treads deep waters that are not her own,
her slender knees drawn up to her chest,
her eyes set on places far from her home,
her arms, muscles knotted, dam her unrest.
Slats dig her back leaving wakes of cloth foam,
eddies of breath disguise sighs from her crib;
she struggles to fight welling torrents unknown
pressing her lungs with swelling salt jibes.
Yet sailing, like tears, for fear's foreign shores,
must flow from one's heart to open closed doors.

A Survivor

by SL Ruth

An ancient mighty oak
lifts burned branches aloft
bereft of leaves,
like an ancient Menorah
trailing wisps of smoke,
whispering secrets of wrongs;
wicks, not quite through burning,
from the candlesticks, melted
hot in sooty embrace of ash,
cover the field once lush with grass and flower.

The oak, all that remains of the green that was,
the lone sentinal to guard what is,
against the fire that begs for more;
unquenched tongues lick out searching,
threathening, but the Menorah
stands firm in charred and silken splendor.

No fire could destroy those strong roots,
a symbol of hope and courage,
the future can be seen through the tree
with stubbed branches still raised high
a survivor for the forest that will come again.

Simple Leaves

by SL Ruth

Simple leaves
in every form
hanging grainy down time roughtened limbs,
blowing stripes of green in a summer wind.
Lime green sprouts
tightly coiled,
ruffled edges spilling out
pleated like a child's paper fan
to unfold slowly,
under shade of mother's bower;
then, warmed by sunshine until they are browned,
blistered, toughened,
the simple leaves
spread wide, and breathe,
then curl on edge, again.
They filter light and water
through transparent spider veins.
shooting nourishment
up tiny tubular stems
to the heart of the tree
and beyond, to the roots
until autumns's chills
wring bright the chloroplast
and in a final blast
the leaf falls free
alone, it dies in glorius hue.

How like leaves we people are
when viewed as the whole
we live our lives hanging from
a rope, or tree,
and then, if we are lucky,
in a final shot of color
we shout out messages of who we are,
what we wanted, but
answers are merely whispers from the tree
as the wind blows through,
then we drop, if fully spread and veined
and painted, or not
and die in the cold, hard ground
like the simple leaves
go our simple lives.

Morning Fracus

by SL Ruth

In those moments of early day
when the sun's rays
precede it
I pause to watch
two young cats at play
on the upstairs deck.
Tightrope pawing in and out
between grayed rails
suspended high above the earth
one cat swats a length of spindle
broken from a wooden swing;
it rolls toward a narrow lath
that binds the precipice.
Both cats have yellow and orange striped fur
long and thick and
bathed in morning's golden glow.
When they bend, or take a step,
such as sticking a coarse and curled tongue out
wet on a paw,
their rich winter furs clump
into wedge-shaped valleys
glazed in surreal outline
by the hazed light.
One cat folds, an accordian,
rehearsing a precise score;
his slick, oval, marbled eyes
a shimmering tint of lemon yellow
glints with anticipation;
slits of grained lines dilate
as the cat calculates the prey.
His brother, unsuspecting,
is batting the stick.
A caterpillar tail hooks at
the end, an involuntary and spasmodic
divulger of scheme,
as though divided brain cells can
not control the movement,
or the cat is simply unaware of his tail;
he extends his claws in separate
and tense individual pods, and the nails
plane splinters from the wooden
planks of the deck, like
a racer on jump start,
preparing.
At last, bellows fling wide
and in perfect striped discord
the cat arcs, a feline harmony
as valleys of yellow and orange
pleat into the sputtering attack.
He pounces. Both cats howl.
The stick, nudged from the fray,
rolls to deck's edge, wobbling,
an irresistible invitation to both cats.

Suddenly, the sun blatantly glares
across the instantly
shadow-slatted cats,
a flash, like a candid snapshot,
draws two molded stares
from four glassed eyes.
The dangling stick hangs unattended,
balancing the throbbing call
to cats
no longer there.
The stick slows, then rests,
like an abandoned sundial
pointing toward the rush of the new day
a testament of time passing.
I hurry down the stairs
behind the startled cats
to begin my own day.

The Rose of Sharon

by SL Ruth

I am the rose of Sharon
lest my loved one should forget
to remember me as less than this
would forfeit tenderness

I've cradled him at evening time
in summer's shadow deep
caressed him to my breast and more
through winter's purple sleep

Hath loved him from the depth of me
his children plain to see
they dance and play across the lawn
delightedly carefree

Lavender is my china heart
as fragilely I come to thee
velvet petals blossum trust
that cannot bear a frost

Whispering, I entreat you dear,
be sensitive of your power;
cherish love with gentle care
for I am a dainty flower.

Ode on Enduring Lost Love

by SL Ruth

I erase the saved messages,
lingering fantasies recorded there
no more clinging to a voice hollow in that sphere

I hide away the lace edged picture frame,
cut holes in snapshots from our lover's album
purely symbolic each of them.

I fill a box for burning,
stack it with our life,
treasured letters wound with ribboned strife;

I vacillate none too long
unless the hesitating kills me;
I will make a clean sweep, it's over and too late

for memories, unless encapsulated,
stored away for a distant,
perhaps safer date.

I remove all physical evidence,
tempting hate or tears
to face the desperation, conquer anquished fears.

I'd use the kitchen carving knife,
to incise my broken heart,
twist it round the pain-filled wound

if I could eradicate the words
the song, tender touches upon my skin,
I'd use the weapon, stop the pain, and all thoughts of him.

Instead I wrap myself in vapors
indelibly written upon my soul
to suffer and endure what mind and body will extol.

How can life be life again?
What's inside cannot be hidden,
the physical may be gone, but thoughts are not forbidden.

He is ever contemplatingly registered here;
I am dead, yet living still, tortured, hurt and breathing;
will I ever celebrate the love we knew, and lost, with reason?