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?

Where in the World is Rhett Butler?

by SL Ruth

I was married to a youth
I was married to an older man,
I was in love twice,
but not with them.

I had some good friends
who held my hand and heart,
and saved me from myself
when my choices were not smart.

A few men have loved me
I looked on them as sweet
it'd be a nice surprise
to find a two-way street.

"Been married to a youth,
been married to an old man,"
Rhett declared to Scarlett
"You need kissing, my dear...

and by someone who knows how."
So, where in the world is Rhett Butler?
He may have missed his cue,
sure hope he wasn't one of those

I identified a roue,
only roguishly disguised
to my weary blinded eyes
from looking too hard for love.

To Be a Shedding Tree

by SL Ruth

Trees bare their souls in season
shed the litotes of their leaves
while standing firmly rooted
against the world,
as limbs, branches, and tiny twigs
feather into the unknown.
One knows where a tree stands.

Often, I've wished to silently
slip inside your mind or heart
to feel where you are rooted
how you stand within the world,
to see as you do
feel what you feel.
My miserable attempts have failed.

If time provided a season
when all the facade was shed
when we could face one another,
as bare as winter trees
exposed, to see, to touch
our hands could trace life-veins
feeling through the limbs, branches and twigs
to the feathered feelings of our souls.
We could then embrace the unknown
rooted together
and love,
or sigh,
like a wind whispered,
through a heavy growth of leaves,
I understand,
and walk away.

Late Autumn Morn

by SL Ruth

Great cottonwoods, steadfast
In autumn's transcendent wind, yield
Summer's crop resplendent
Painted by Master Hand.

Morning's crisp yet hazy glimmer
Sends cotton fairy-spores snowing
A single leaf fares daintily, descending,
Shimmering golden bright
Upon a gust, commencing
One last wild free flight.

Ruffled stacks of color
Gathered against the garden gate,
Ruby red veined with yellow, make
Autumn's harvest in final slendor,an
Intrinsic, lovely sight.

Justice

by SL Ruth
My Dad's death began last February
in reverse-action sequence;
no witnesses were called,
no expert stepped forth to exonerate,
no miracles, no bribery, no parole,
no mercy: simply
a youthful doctor, acting as bailiff,
who read the verdict,
pronounced the sentence.
There would be no appeal.
No manipulating the system,
only a short term wait on death row
while his body, strong and athletic,
until he heard the news, was poisoned with chemicals;
not in lethal injection, nor hiss of gas,
but in tiny increments, was he dosed to death.

Fallen locks of his magnificent, white, thick, silken hair,
lay like silver threads on his navy windbreaker
and as mementoes on the back of his vacated easy chair;
slender strands we find clinging on things still living,
like the pink azalea blossoms by the front porch,
I was startled to find one there
from the day I shook his jacket;
and on the raised fur of his new house slippers
where arch had not time to compress,
but worse, across my mother's open palm.
My Dad died in December,
as he had lived, in quiet dignity,
surrounded by his sweetheart and children,
as strong, and true, and responsible
in death as he was in life:
an example for good.

Now comes forth witnesses,
with tear-stained faces and wet handkerchiefs
to bear testimony of him,
to caress his lifeless brow,
and pat the shoulder of his best brown suit;
Would their testimony had been as stong in February
before the Judgment sentenced him,
if not to save,
at least, he could have known
that we wanted a good fight for justice.

shouted consumerism

by SL Ruth

a sonnet for ee cummings

on winged nikes a latex message flies swift
rebounding on limited edition airjordans
boldly dancing past sportswannabes miffed
while thousands of ayes succomb to comeon
calvin's not calvinistic neverthelessshout
rolexed rhetoric politically correct
guess? a redtriangled gap cashed out
hallmarked on beamers or cherokees text
hype through sex transformed into gold
as nottobeoneupped yuppies race for control
and cindy or claudia or carol's sold souls
prettily echo the trendy extols
he with the most wins the first prize
to hell with competitors and all the unwise

Shirts

by SL Ruth

Mom sent over some of my dad's shirts
Since he is dead
I was grateful to get them.

I smell the starched collars worn to frayed edge
and look at them draped limp on wire hangers.

I touch where he touched, on the rough work weaves,
and smooth the cotton of his dress shirt,
I feel what he felt
against his skin.

I could never fill those shirts,
I've got shirts of my own to fill now he's gone.

His shirts, long-sleeved in time
softened neutrals,
and wide shining ties striped to match

hang above his resoled shoes free of dust,
they belonged to my Dad.
Neither one of us needs them now,
So why do I keep them?

I caress the blue one closest to me
And sniff once more a trace of his cologne
then I shut the closet door
and again, I wonder why?

Starburst

by SL Ruth

Your words of longing
Your voice husky and low
Your breath laying whispers
Tenderly against my ear
Lets me hear your desire
Experience your fantasy.
My mind spins,
I flush with the warmth
Of a thousand stars,
Like embers smoldering,
Gathered to explode,
Burning me with the fire
Of your passion.
I sense your presence;
As your voice caresses me
I long for your touch,
For you to burst upon me
As your words have.

In this day of technology there's lots of telephone & text messaging going on. The above poem came to me in a flash several years ago. I haven't changed a word. The poem still refreshes the impression of that single moment when I experienced the emotion. Let me know how it touches you.

Frozen Scene

by SL Ruth

Snow swirls silently
As I hesitate at the top
Of the ridge;
Pausing to absorb the splendor
Of the pristine and whitened world
Surrounding me.

Two magpies and three black crows
Perch atop tall trees
Like sentinals poised at Elysian gates;
Suddenly, as on timely cue, the magpies dive
From their obelisks, to hover
In the face of the glittered wind.

Both flail their wings, struggling
Then, deftly lift to the solitary peaks
Of two separate snow-laden evergreens;
The trees shudder, sifting
Off thin showers
Of crystal flakes.

The magpies ruffle their feathers
And settle in like the slick, black
Crows below them;
The image is frozen in my mind
And in my body through
Layers of thick insulation.

Snow envelops me
Hiding my skis, I lift them
Crunching the powder beneath;
My breath forms a hoary
Frost, like misted icing
Freezing my woolen mask.

I shift my weight with one last long
Survey of the scene
Cold permeates me;
I push off the edge of the world
And begin my own iced flight
Down the mountain.

Night Freight

by SL Ruth

Two forty AM
The sheets are gray and
Rope-twisted for an escape
In the muted absence of light
While my eyes dilate
Fixed on the flourescent numbers
Outlined in greenish glow
I grope for the time-thinned
White cotton robe to cover my nakedness
The steady click-clacking alarm
The only sound
Sweat flushes my body
As I move across the heart of pine
Floor ribbed and gritty under
Toughened and calloused feet
To the rickety porch beyond
A crooked screened door upon which
Is pinned a wad of cotton
Discouraging only me
I sit on the splintered stoop
Smoothing the back of the robe
Between my legs
Which fall free like the
Limp sash draped down the steps
On either side of me
A tiny white moth flutters past my lashes
Like a spark from the crepuscular train
Where it leans as the rails slink
Into a curve half-mile away
I feel the rumble of hot steel
Crushing against cresoted ties
Squealing like a mama hog
As the terrible freight
Wobbles along the monotonous
Nightly run of
Soul-wrenching vibrations
The smell of burning oil and nerves
Speeding through the dark heavy night
Whips the warmed August air
Against my skin where wisps of hair
Not struck down with sweat
Sting my eyes
Breath drawn into lungs near suffocated
Expelled like the low whistle in
Warning, deafening, mournful blasts
I am the earth beneath hurdling
With the train above like
A mindless android caterpillar
Unstoppable
Whining, creaking, splitting the dark
I feel life draining out of me
As the night freight South rocks past

Morning Fracus

Dearest Daughters,
I'd like to begin by sharing some of my poetry if I can ever figure out how to get it pasted in here. Apparently, it's going to require some giggling.

You go first!

Let's make this site a place we can go to share our inner thoughts, feelings, emotions, & talents in an open forum. I hope we can share poetry, lyrics, ideas, concerns, soapbox oratorio, & whatever leaps into our minds or hearts to share. I feel that by expressing ourselves this way we will truly become sisters & family. Remember that God has only one family.

Please respond with your thoughts. The name of my little volume of poetry is, "Thoughts to Provoke Thought & the Senses." I'll try to get at least one poem on here by nightfall.

Love to all,
Mom/Mimi