Even now, in my sixties, I keep falling
in love with things. The crumpled
texture and weave of linen, the sharp
clean edge of a cotton collar, the soft
slouchy hems of bright socks. A lingering
lanolin smell in the folds of a wool
sweater makes me think of the sheep
that was in the news not too long ago.
There was ample grassland where she
was stranded at the foot of the Scottish
highlands. But with steep walls of rock
on one side and open water on the other,
she grew lonely for the company of others.
It took two long years until four farmers
used a winch to rappel down eight hundred
feet to rescue her. If Fiona— for that
was the name they gave her— could signal
her desire across the lonely shore
of Cromarty Firth, I too understand
the inner stirrings reminding me I'm
still here, inhabiting a body that quickens
to spring. Aren't you eager for the promise
of light the clean color of washed quartz,
for any small warm flame of delight you can
still cup in your hands? The humming
in the blood says yes, why not. Yes, yes.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
