Road Trip

I want to take a road trip
stop along the way and explore an old adobe house
with crumbling, eroding walls
And after maybe 50 years of vacancy
Hollyhocks still bloom near what was
once the front door.

Or maybe stop at a sunlit meadow,
much like one I saw 40 years ago
on the way back from Colorado
I wanted to stop then,
it was so beautiful
But Arizona beckoned me home
And, being in a hurry, I didn’t stop.

Or, upon seeing a boulder outcropping
climb up onto the smoothest one
lie down and let the warmth of the rock
ease my aching back,
eyes shielded from the sun.

Then stop at a roadside stand for
some black cherry juice,
Or maybe stop along the way
at a country store
equipped with an old-fashioned fountain counter
and splurge on a milkshake
poured from a stainless cup into a tall,
tapered crystal fountain glass.

Or stop at a motel with vines growing on its walls
the proprietors a friendly old couple
who treat the place like a Bed and Breakfast
by offering a lending library and homemade snacks

Then, stop at a front yard cottage garden
beckoning beyond a white picket fence,
all layered and rocky and terraced
and full of color and scent,
beautiful and compelling in its wildness

Visit a friend from my twenties, back
when we were young and gorgeous
and didn’t know it then, but know it now
Oh, what we would have done
differently had we known.
We joke about it but we both know
we were what we were and
would not have done it differently.

And then, move on to a beach at Carmel-By-The-Sea
soaking up the sun without worrying
about cancer and wrinkles and such
Stay until sunset, then move on down the road
toward the full moon in the eastern sky.

~Aiyana ©

He Kept His Date

'Nostradamus was reliable'

'A beautiful witch casts a different spell'

Paradigm Shift II

I have a summer lover, she said,
And I, surprised,
When she said, “she.”

Wired

Christmas Eve

That's How The Light Gets In

Ring the bells that still can ring,

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

~Leonard Cohn

Pictures in the Smoke

Oh, gallant was the first love, and glittering and fine;

The second love was water, in a clear white cup;

The third love was his, and the fourth was mine;

And after that, I always get them all mixed up.

~ Dorothy Parker

I Just Couldn't Deal With Winter

The shadows are shorter now, and the new growth is sprouting on my ivy. Funny how plants know, even before the days are cooler, that fall is coming. I welcome this season change; glory in it. Before I can tire of it, winter will be here.

Autumn is coming on, mellow, and smooth. It is my second season knowing him. How I enjoy the rounding out of the season, and the rounding out of my emotions— and the penetrating diffusion that follows the last blasts of summer heat.

That summer heat was so intense, so draining. Just like my feelings for him then. Feelings so strong they stabbed and fought for release, at times welling up in me and coming out as tears or an involuntary scream. Summer has its value, but it can’t last.

I am reminded by the changing seasons that love must change to grow into something deep and lasting. It must suffer the insults of daily life, the excesses of the seasons, and the less pompous attributes of the human condition. If it makes it through all this, then there is an acceptance of the cycle of love and a welcoming of each successive season.

© Aiyana ~ 1974

This I Know Is True...

Life is a jest; and all things show it,

I thought so once; but now I know it.

~ John Gay

Alternatives

There were times
when dying seemed a good option
to end pain and angst,
always caused by some man.

I learned over the years
just to wait it out because
the pain subsided and time
brought indifference.

And time always brought
another man, and after 1000 days
when the passion had cooled,
whatever pain that came
was cured not with thoughts of dying,
but with a good book and a hot fudge sundae.

~ Aiyana

Respite

There at oceanside
Tall glass reflects
Halcyon wave crests
At sunset.
I am home.

Night Glory

We Used To Believe...

Ocean Dreams

Moonstone, reflecting
sea pictures in
lantern light.
Reflecting on sea pictures
not meant to be.

I Did It For The Money

Touching The Sun

Song To The Moon

I see the moon,
The moon sees me
God bless the moon,
And God bless me.

-A nursery rhyme

Bridge Over The Salt