Gentlewoman (Listening to the grandmothers: a part at the end)

Gentlewoman you define my hand

I heard you taste of colors last spotted on a train before the great war - 

Let's pretend we're proper ladies kept under watchful eyes,

"Was it always done in summer?  We must do the same again."

I don't like the tenor.

"You Shakespeare or just a hack?"

We pretend prefect manners while the rot stains spread down the hallways.

"LOOK more real - less doll like."

Why does she cut her roast on the face of the queen?

-Hands down -

There will be enough!

You can use each moment to thread your tendons.

I still sometime count those tiles in my dreams.

That becomes your core - your home

You have forever in that breathe right there.

Plunder it like summer's faithful treasures.

Woven streams of women

All with gentle spirits

"Who comes with you today?"

- ALL WE REPLY - 

We have come here together.

Ready to questions the winds and waters.

Holding meetings with our future.

We invented new words

We stretched the sky.

Now a montage

Crescendo big - there is no shame here.

We find a cure.

- yes.  you are made of wonder -

that's simple - more forthcoming

You are alive

made of things so special

- yes, even you - cue laugh track 

So slow down - the race, the place, the flicker of the tv

Find the story

Make a joke

Share a wonder

and there you're flying.

It's all so natural

water over rock

breathe in streams of lives and times

you are the spaces and silences matter too.

You are the whole box of crayons

- you know their secrets -

You write in glitter

Me too - just backwards/upside down/in a tense not yet invented

"Two stoves?"

I ask myself quite often.

I know the answer, just liked the thrill

You go on home now

soft arms embrace you

"You hear each tone like light on the back of your garden than now entertains such a beauty."

Swallow all the lessons

don't fear the shadows

hold up your daughters

teach all your sons

so their might yet be forests

where bare spots once scarred our skins

Hold the cedar

watch the water

know your streets

you are a wonder to this world

we are all together linked

making patterns so divine

- breathe in wonder - 

release each everything you tortured in mad fury

out across the fabric that you wove

as you take your share from others

balancing a moment that is you and yours.

****

Hibernation 2021 Pehiw