Tag: love

Who hoards rain clouds in the desert?

Sarah RussellLeave a comment

Another wonderful poem by my friend Rajani Radhakrishnan. Instead of reblogging it from her website, I put it here so you could read it uninterrupted. Please leave comments on her site and look around while you’re there. She writes beautiful poetry.

Who hoards rain clouds in the desert?

There the universe stores vats of virgin happiness, doling
it out like a grim faced Scrooge, while we wait, bowl in

hand, wanting more. Always wanting more. We are made
of longing and hunger. And everywhere we look, is a giant

supermarket feeding that emptiness. Everything in excess,
marked down, on luscious display, the seed of the first apple

feverishly multiplying on every shelf of every aisle and our
hands reaching constantly to fill the ever growing void. Except

for happiness. For that, there is a line and a quota and a price.
We pretend not to see each other. Who will admit to such

privation? We study the signs from a distance. Perhaps, it
is another sorrow, another wound, another word that brings

you here. Does my skin turn transparent as I stand? Do you know
the scars inside? You will not turn your head. I will not call. How

much longer? Who hoards rain clouds in the desert? No one
warned me to save my smile. To save the light in your eyes.

– Rajani Radhakrishnan
Rajani’s website
Photo source

The Beach at Lighthouse Point

Sarah Russell10 Comments

A beautiful villanelle I found today by Michael Flynn Ragland.

^^^^^^^^

But she had told me even stranger things.
I shook my head and gazed off down the shore,
the cirrus twilight filled with seagulls’ wings.

A hallway of insistent mutterings
still echoed with the four-inch heels she wore.
(And she had told me even stranger things.)

A beauty, dressed in black among the strings,
she played such passages as soon would score
our cirrus twilights filled with seagulls’ wings.

A man who once had brought her jewels and rings
had left her sprawled, her head gashed, on the floor.
Yet she had told me even stranger things.

Had I loved her? Another autumn brings
her ghost. In dreams she murmurs from the door.
In cirrus twilights filled with seagulls’ wings

her hand takes mine: “A lonely mermaid sings.”
She kisses me. “Hear, through the breakers’ roar?”
But she had told me even stranger things,
those cirrus twilights filled with seagulls’ wings.

– Michael Flynn Ragland
Photo Source

Bio:  As a kid in the Ozarks, I lived in an old, stone house atop a cliff; as a teenager, by a stage road along which had been fought the last major battle won by the Confederacy. After an aimless decade in college and graduate school, I lived on a barrier island. I’ve taught English in high schools and universities, worked as a photographer for an advertising firm, and kept the books at a medical clinic. Writing that appeals to me is introspective and steeped in atmosphere.

Chancing Love

Sarah Russell36 Comments


Not a dive’s precision arc.
Instead a lemming run and plunge,
oblivious to depth,
temperature, whether
water’s in the pool.
Cynics shake their heads.
“Only a fool…” they say.
“Yes, yes!” I answer,
and drop my towel.

– Sarah Russell
First published in Shot Glass Journal
For Poets United Poetry Pantry
Photo Source
                      

Maintenance

Sarah Russell33 Comments

Loose roof shingles —
a couple on the ground
after last night’s wind
when the trees creaked
and rubbed themselves
like old men. Can’t put off
the mending. I loved once,
before I knew how love
works, how roofs leak
when it rains.

– Sarah Russell
First published in Poetry Breakfast
Photo source
For Poets United Poetry Pantry

Invitation

Sarah Russell43 Comments

We found a stream that night
away from everywhere but us –
water voices whispering,
the honey of first times,
wind feathery on urgent skin.

Perhaps a folly, our rush
into together and tomorrow –
forever’s promissory note
before the debt of everyday.

Let’s go back
and lie beside the stream again,
listen for the water voices,
feel the wind’s breath

before we disappear.

– Sarah Russell
First published in The Houseboat
Photo Source
For Poets United

Reunion

Sarah Russell59 Comments

For fifty years
she wrote to Yolanda
in foreign prose,
sharing secrets as she once did
walking home from school –
Argentina and girlhood
a lifetime ago.
Reality: three kids, then grandkids,
a troubled husband, an aging mother,
an Arkansas farm.
Yet every letter promised
that someday she’d return.

Now they are on the tarmac
in Mendoza,
stooped, with the uncertain step of age.
Words catch in their throats
as their hands caress the other’s cheeks,
wipe away the other’s tears,
and their eyes see only
the girls they were –
their secrets safe.

– Sarah Russell
For Poets United prompt “reunions“
  Photo by Grace Robertson

Note:  In 1993, my husband and I took his mother to Argentina where she had spent her childhood.  This was perhaps my favorite memory of our trip.

The Cottage

“the smell of earth turned by a trowel…”

Sarah Russell55 Comments

I’ve grown quiet here. My mind
has opened to woodsong
and the smell of earth turned
by a trowel.

I enjoy solitude, even when regrets
or the throb of an old lover happen by.
Sometimes I invite them in, make
a ritual of teacups on starched linen,
a silver server for the scones.
We reminisce ’til shadows trace
across the floor, call them away.

Afterwards, I tidy up, wipe away
drops spilled in the pouring. I save
the leftovers though they’re getting stale.
I may crumble them on the porch rail
tomorrow for sparrows
before I garden.

– Sarah Russell
First published in Poetry Breakfast
For Real Toads Tuesday Platform
Photo courtesy of Daisy Fields on Pinterest

At the beauty salon

Sarah Russell59 Comments

I close my eyes as a young woman
massages in shampoo, gently rubs
my temples, smooths cream rinse —
scented with jasmine — from my brow,
and you are here with me again
that summer day under the waterfall.

– Sarah Russell
First published in Shot Glass Journal
Photo courtesy of waterfall.solaridas.com
For the “suggested narrative” prompt at Real Toads
Also for Poets United’s Poetry Pantry.

Petrichor

Sarah Russell58 Comments

Start with a kiln-dry summer day,
when the earth cracks with longing,
and sweat makes tracks between your breasts.

The air’s so still you hear a beetle scuttle
on the screen, the sun dims in a sullen sky,
and crickets stop chirping. Maybe they know
what’s coming, or they’re tired of asking.

Then it starts – the first lazy drops –
and when the wooden porch step’s dappled,
you go out and lift your face to the embrace
and breathe in the mix of dust and rain
like a lover’s musk.

– Sarah Russell
First published in The Houseboat
Painting by  Rafaelll90 Digital Art

Susanna IX

“You must let me go, Tomás…”

Sarah Russell8 Comments

OK, I’ll admit it.  I’m a hopeless romantic, and Will Pennington’s series of poems and fiction about Susanna captures lost love so poignantly that I asked if I could reblog his latest poem.  To read more of the Susanna series, please visit Will’s site, and let him know your thoughts.

 

Is she the one, Susanna?
I do not know, Tomás.
You must know, Susanna.
Why, Tomás?
She makes me think of you.
She is not me.
I want you back, Susanna.
I’m dead, Tomás.
You died too soon.
Yes.
Why? Why? Tell me.
I do not know why, Tomás. It was my time to die.
It isn’t fair.
Life is not always fair.
Sasi makes me feel the way you did.
Then you must be with her.
What if I forget you?
You must forget me to be happy with Sasi.
I lost half of my heart when you died.
Then Sasi must replace that part of your heart.
No, Susanna. I can’t.
Yes, Tomás. You must.
I don’t want to forget you. You have the piece of my heart that makes me whole.
You must let me go, Tomás, so you can find love and happiness again.
No.
If Sasi is the one, she will hold the piece of your heart that makes you whole.
Yes?
Yes. Love makes the heart whole, not the person, Tomás.
Yes.
Do you love Sasi?
I’m falling in love with her, Susanna.
You must be fair to her, Tomás, and let her love you.
Yes.
You must forget me to love her, Tomás, or you won’t be happy.
Then I won’t be happy, Susanna.
Tomás.
I love you, Susanna.
I love you, Tomás.

– Will Pennington