Urges
Trees’ leaves boast the season’s
fashion colors: “Pomegranate.”
“Georgia jet.”
“Jonagold.”
I gaze at weeds that smother
my yard. Bamboo grass and crown vetch
burgeon here, breach the bounds
of daylily, azalea, and rose.
Often this summer I aimed
to venture out and pull their green
from the ground. Instead, I just watched
what I didn’t want
seize my land. This Appalachian hill,
too steep, threatened missteps
I dared not take. Stayed safe. Let
inaction reign. Now I squint
in September’s slanted rays, hands
on hips, wishing I’d done better here
outdoors
in my garden.
I sink into the autumn
of my woman’s body, at once
ripened with sighs of earthly
pleasures gone and earthly
homage yet undone. Crone
alone
knows the terra wisdom of her own
body, blood, and bones: Creation’s
earthborn inamorata. Beloved woman called
not just to be. But to do
as Woman does.
Past is present and nowhere at all. Time
comes and goes, rises
through my soles. Intuition
surges, purges, urges
now.
Honey
On the top shelf of the cupboard is where
Mom hid the honey, where
she kept it from our appetite for sweet, where
I now, too, store it in my kitchen.
Outside bees hover over
blooms. Cosmos, coneflower, moonbeam
coreopsis, like cancan dancers in lifted
skirts, flirt with bumbler, honey,
and even wasp. Flaunt
their nectar. No worker can resist. No
hungry tongue denied.
I once longed for that kind of freedom,
to flirt and flaunt and show the boys
we could have a good time. Like bees
they came. Then fled. Just left their dust behind.
On the top shelf of the cupboard is where
I hide the honey, away from my appetite
for sweet. I keep it in my kitchen there,
out of sight and out of reach.