True Love in 55 Words

This is a Friday Flash 55, a story told in exactly 55 words. Thanks to the G-Man for hosting this.

MY HERO

No more than the bird with piercing voice
is my beloved to be feared
when he sings of his complaints.
My shortcomings, and the world’s,
are worth a serenade from him.
He does it often but does not leave me
and I find strange comfort in the song:
Is this not true love?

Thanks to Sappho, eternal Greek poetess, for the first eight words. They are all that survive of whatever poem accompanied them.

True love…today I’m grateful the subject doesn’t cause misery. It doesn’t go hand-in-glove with suffering anymore.

Not everyone is given that gift. When I told one of my dearest old friends about falling in love with Joe, he told me, “Wait until Reality sets in.” Love, to my friend, was a source of cynical laughter.

Joe and I have waited 18 years for Reality to set it. We have never left each other, no matter how angry we got. We don’t whine about each other’s faults. We do listen to each other and offer encouragement. We keep our expectations at a low roar.

We do it one day at a time, too. This day is all we have, so we might as well live it fully, the way our Alcoholics Anonymous program tells us to. Today, well lived, leads to a series of good tomorrows.

*****

Desire Gave Him Wings

A photo I did not take of a bird that visited my yard.

More than 2,500 years ago, Sappho knew how to put a poem together. (If my old professors knew I talked this way they’d cringe.) She had an earthy zest for love and its many faces: desire, heartache, worship, bitterness.

I’m taking a break from serious stuff like earthquakes and dementia and pretending to be Sappho. The competition I’m getting ready for requires us to copy one of Sappho’s lines as a prompt. One of these coming days I’m going to write a poem I like enough to enter.

So here’s a little game for you. Here are some Sappho poems. Which are mine? It would really make my day if you can’t be sure.


DESIRE GAVE HIM WINGS

The doorkeeper’s feet are seven armlength’s long
and his black eyes gleam like teeth as he leaps
to meet his high-breasted lover



TO ANAKTORIA

Some say cavalry and others claim
infantry or a fleet of long oars
is the supreme sight on the black earth.
I say it is
the one you love.



SEIZURE

To me he seems like a god
as he sits facing you and
hears you near as you speak
softly and laugh
in a sweet echo that jolts
the heart in my ribs.



REMEMBERED LOVE

Sweetbitter unmanageable creature who steals in
to wring my heart with thoughts of her
Back! Go plague some black-faced warrior
whose stout heart can bear your vagaries.
Leave me to ply my violets in peace.



TO A HANDSOME MAN

Stand up and gaze on me as friend
to friend. I ask you to reveal
the naked beauty of your eyes.



AGE AND LIGHT

Here are fine gifts, children,
all my flesh is wrinkled with age,
my black hair has faded to white,
my legs can no longer carry me,
once nimble like a fawn’s,
but what can I do?
It cannot be undone,
no more than can pink-armed Dawn
not end in darkness on earth

*****

If you don't want to talk about poetry, let's talk about taxes.

I'm putting mine together today. Do you do your own, or do you have a pro do them? For 30 years I've done all the figuring and then given them to a pro. I'm afraid to use a software program and submit them myself.

People who rent, who don't have children or investments, might be the people who really support the government with their taxes. The rich have write-offs. The poor have tax credits. Those who work to make a living and who can't afford a house, like my daughter and her honey, have to pay the full price the government exacts.

God bless them.

Unexpected Poetry

“Stupid things happen to old people.”

My Mom

We took a ride to the lake, which now looks like a lake instead of the snaky wide river it resembled last year after a few years of drought.
It’s a fun drive (at least for me, the driver) as the road winds through the oaks and pastures out to the lake. We parked out there on a hill overlooking the water, and the three of us walked and talked, son, daughter, and mother.

Talking with someone who has dementia is like riding a horse that hurdles fences. Strange leaps of subject matter at regular intervals keep you on your toes. Down this avenue; UP IN THE AIR. Down that avenue; UP IN THE AIR. OOPS, a little wobble there.
It was interesting watching my brother try to follow Mom’s leaps.
Mom: “I have an image…oh, we were there…and it must have been when Jim came…”
Brother: “Jim who?”
Mom: “Who?”
Brother: “Who was Jim?”
Mom: “It was so…relieving.”
Brother: “Was it Jim ---- ?”
Mom: “Who was it?”
Who’s on second….

A field on the way to the lake
*****

Here’s a silly Sappho fragment, if anyone wants to try a hand at writing a poem that uses it as a title or a first line:
“gold anklebone cups”
Don’t feel inspired by that one? How about:
“you burn me”
Here’s Tupelo Press’s link to the Poetry Project—Fragments from Sappho contest. The deadline is March 31.

*****

Mom walked past a boulder yesterday and said, “I was curious about that, but I couldn’t put water in it.”
Later she nudged a dried-up worm on the sidewalk with her toe and announced, “It’s done done.”
When the drive was done done, the aide and I coaxed her into the shower, which enraged her. After the ordeal, when she was dressed again, she said, “Stupid things happen to old people.”
Yes, they do, Mom.
I came home and wrote more Sappho poems.

*****