One Stroke

Tags

Elaine Stirling, Horacio Quiroga, Jules Michelet, light erotica, love poems, magical realism, nagual

Man hunts and struggles. Woman intrigues and dreams;
she is the mother of fantasy and of the gods.
She possesses second sight, wings that permit her to fly
toward the infinite of desire and imagination…
Gods are like men: they are born and die on a woman’s breast.

—Jules Michelet

~~~

But man, too, intrigues and dreams.
I know this to be true
because of you

because of you
feathered god, who
with one stroke of your feather

the pearls that I scattered
in gutters and sties
the pollen I blew
into angry men’s eyes
the syrup I dribbled
the platters I cracked
to uphold disingenuous
plots

reassembled
to banquets
and breakfasts in bed
with a long-lashed lover
who knows his Quiroga
while honey bees swoon
spilling marigold
nuggets

and the slop yards
I ran from
with one stroke
of your feather
have reclaimed
their true nature
as houses of treasure—

and now you’re not
writing love poems.

Well, that same
feathered god whose
wingspan we share
has sent me
to tell you
the breast
you will die on
can’t find you.
She aches.

One stroke,
one stroke
is all
she will need.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2014
Translation of J. Michelet, © E. Stirling, 2014

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Double Shot with San Timoteo

Tags

Elaine Stirling, ENS, enteric nervous system, nagual, narrative poetry, peristalsis, poetry, wisdom of the gut

Move me through
the rhythms of your bayou
sounding, gut me with
the slantwise look you learned
from gators in the swamp
who glide with mastery
the just-below, do nothing
to prevent you thinking
they’re a big ole log
—until you blink.

A spirit pushes
me along the Spanish
mossy river trails
marimba drips of fluid
hit the flow I used to see
and then forgot, there’s
forests growing in between
these green transparencies.

Borders of the demi-monde
they overcrowd with people
squinting into maps, patrolmen
triple-checking histories. Don’t
bother looking for me there, you
said. The ass end of not knowing
is the only Hydra head you have
to cut to build, to own the whole
dang labyrinth.

Letting go and getting lost,
they’ve never been a problem.
Other people’s had-it-up-to-here,
who made that your care?
The bayou’s silent millions
wrap their slippery boas
round us all and squeeze
with happy pink equality
what otherwise, if left
to stay, would kill us.

So now, canoas of Minatitlan
lie ready to traverse the Gulf
from me to you. I’m told the small
café along San Timoteo’s delta
is open year round. I’ll meet
you there at half past ten.
It’s called the Just Below.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling 2013
Image of bayou from http://www.addictedtorealitytv.com

Hero

Tags

creating reality, Elaine Stirling, form poetry, manifestation, mythology, nagual, personal alchemy, plot devices, septime, seven stanza verse, subtle bodies, the hero archetype, writer's craft

A hero comes to me in dark of night,
mandolin strapped to his back, with shoulders
curled against the wind. Chinooks are moving
in. I think they may have blown him here,
though hard to tell. He moves with equal ease
through stillness, scaling walls in minor keys,
ignoring doors to broach this gate of mine.

My hero cannot be possessed. He’s mine
at best of times, a realist, nowhere
to be found when I have lost my keys
or sense of self. His breadth of shoulders
frames serenity while chaos storms the night;
he fends me from imagining dis-ease
and keeps my languid spirit moving.

On cloudy days, he plays mazurkas here
beside the fire until the pulsing night
surrounds us, and desires that I mine
with little hope by day spring free with ease.
My hero stands on solid ground of shoulders
that precede him. Our whole procession’s moving
toward an assembling One who holds the keys.

When I acclimate to ease
inside, I feel my hero moving
fully aimed to please the now and here,
delivering friends and lovers with the keys
to ships and fantasies, a diamond mine
without the cruelty. His silhouetted shoulders
steps ahead, he entertains no dark night

of the soul, adept at holding shoulders
loose, my hero is a player strumming keys
in octaves you can only hear at night.
His eyes and smile I have made mine.
The rest is me, a subtle body moving
with the cellular eccentricities of here
as best of all & better coming. He’s my ease,

the plot and action to my story keys,
reminding me, accept no substitutes! Mine
is the right to happiness by means of ease,
pursuit of joy. He is my rock, unmoving.
From him, I catapult and build us here
a cityscape of dreams. We love at night,
create by dawn the slope of light’s soft shoulders.

Through brighter times we are now moving,
he and I, receptive to the exponential ease
of Creation sprinkling across our shoulders
bold imaginations of the tumbling, lusty night.
Tolerate no whimpering fakes with rusty keys,
he quips. The hero’s role is yours and mine
to be enjoyed through mortals here.

The peace that’s mine brings more of same. The hero’s keys
to each with ease is given here, where comedy is moving,
masked, our shoulders squared encircling day and night.

~~~

This poem is a septime, a form of my own devising with seven repeating end words in seven, seven-stanza lines. The three-line envoi counts down the original 1-7 words, 7-1.

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image of Lemminkäinen’s mother,
artist unknown

That Thing You Fear

Tags

Canadian Thanksgiving, Elaine Stirling, flash fiction, incantation, Law of Attraction, like attracts like, nagual, poetry, rune singing, self-importance, self-pity, spontaneity, the old ways, vibrational reality

It was the summer of ’82 when my life fell apart, and I visited Grandma, sat on her porch in Hazelnut Corners, drinking iced tea and watching lightning bugs play catch-me-dare in the twilight.

“What’s that thing you fear, child?”

I was twenty-three, hardly a child, and hoped I made it clear in my response.

She cupped her ear and leaned forward on her squeaky porch swing. “The Reaper cussin’? That’s what scares you?”

“I said, repercussion, Grandma.”

“Well, hell, that’s just hogwash! There ain’t no repercussion, ain’t no Reaper cussin’, except the kind you place in front of your own self like banged-up paint cans to trip over and make a big howly whoop-dee-do for any poor soul who’s close enough to listen.”

I clinked the ice cubes in my tea and awaited what I knew was coming.

Grandma would never call herself a poet, though once she got a rhythm going, you could snap peas and shuck corn using half the energy and a quarter the time. Reverend Hicks said she’d have been a mighty preacher, if it weren’t for that holy injunction against women at a pulpit. But Grandma held no truck with thou-shalt-nots and given a pulpit, would have sent everyone home and turned the church into a B&B.

“Go make joyful noises,” she’d have said. “Let your kids bang pots, do some banging of your own. God knows some of you could use it.”

I wish now that I’d recorded her rune-songs while she was singing them, for rune-songs is what they were. Spontaneous, unbound, her incantations called down the Spirit and sent up her own, spinning out and growing the loop of creation her Creator began. Here, best as I remember, is what else Grandma said in her saucy way, that day we talked about the thing I feared.

Give yourself some
head room, child, grow
a house beside another
house becomes a village
with a garden, ‘nuff
to feed the crops of
young ones sprouting
tow and woolly heads
who chase each other
cross the gullies, nets
and footballs arcing
toward the sunset till
your mothers step
outside and call your
names to come indoors
where clean or rumpled
sheets await with dreams
pressed up like noses
to a candy store—it’s you
the world is looking for
the sweet and salty
liquorice taste of
smacking lips and tongue
your teeth and dreams need
spice to salivate and chew
bite down, enjoy the meats
that tempt while juices flow
let no one come between
you and the joy you’ve
come to sow, spit out
that thing you fear, it
winked out long ago
see for yourself
the lightning bugs
they’ll tell you so.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving, everyone!

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image from http://www.fragmentsfromfloyd.com

Of Boxes and Circles, We Built a Town

Tags

ancient Meso-America, Carlos Castaneda, collective mind, double sestina, Elaine Stirling, form poetry, giant stone heads, higher ground, manifestation, Matthew Stirling, Mexico, nagual, non-linear cognitive systems, Olmec culture, reconciliation, relationships, sacred geometry, six syllable lines, the actions of creation, there is no separation

You and I built a town
of boxes and circles
you will find on no map
and yet everyone knows
of the place, they still talk
though the streets are long gone
and we knocked out the lights,
fled our separate ways…
so why are they here, all
these hopefuls and dreamers?
What do they think they will
gain, remembering us?

Two random dots

We began, not as us,
no idea a town
would boom, spread and shine all
around. Uncertain will
doesn’t share what it knows,
so at first sight of lights
we ran in scared circles
clawing for hatches, ways
to escape; thus, the map
had begun while dreamers
crept in, by dawn were gone
leaving whispers of talk.

Pick-up lines

You were the first to talk
stirring echoes of us
from an era long gone.
To deny what one knows
when it’s true the delights
we once knew in a town
we can’t see, encircles
and reduces the map
to 3 or 2-D. Dreamers
try to give us their all,
but your will and mine will
resist in their own ways.

Pressure

There are so many ways
we could sing, think or talk
to bring heat to the lights
that create, never gone;
but push hates what shove knows
and there’s still no real us.
As stalkers and dreamers
we chase in mad circles,
asking, who lost the map?
learn intent, pray for will,
while around us the town
of the mind bends to all.

My, you’re square

My circle, your square, all
angling to find new ways
we can join what is gone
to what comes. As dreamers
we sketch in bliss our town
of infinite circles,
string theories, dangle lights.
All we’ve forgotten knows
to unroll the great map;
we see that we need us,
everything grows big, talk
and plans and schemes and will.

Sphere of no fear

Dear friend, say what you will,
for a time I heard all
you touched and felt, doggone,
that was fine! The dreamers
were pleased. At last, she knows
him; he knows her, circles
spinning into spheres, lights
across the budding town
spelled out your name. Our us
had the look of always.
We did not fear the talk
of stalkers with their map.

The swelling head

But routes don’t lie. Our map
of shortage and weak will
beneath the twinkling lights
was bleeding through. The ways
that would undermine us
flashed their naked parts. Town
criers laughed in circles
round us—hey, big dreamers,
how ‘bout you throw some talk
our way? Then you were gone,
siphoned off, drained by all
the superhero knows.

Cracks in the system

The best surveyor knows
the details of his map,
while speculators, all
we see is here and gone.
I chase the thrill; your talk
grows dull. I want dreamers!
They’re lusting into town
intrigued by the red lights
and tales we’ve strung. The us
we were has cracked and will
grow worse and die in ways
that spin us through circles.

Quick, do something!

Chasing you in circles,
partial attention knows
nothing, plucks at cheap talk.
We have both quit the town
we built and burnt the map
certain that our old ways
are buried deep, delights
we knew, cut off. Dreamers
claim they can see it all;
stalkers, their iron will
marches hell straight through us,
and all our strength is gone.

The gods are pissed.

With joyful wisdom gone
paranoia circles
sacrifice demands all
that we hold dear. The map
is rubbish; all the ways
that led to our sweet town
are blocked. You’ll find no lights
at night, the smarmy talk
of darkness feeds dreamers
with dread. Nobody knows
what happened to their will.
Angry gods, the new us!

Now look what you’ve done.

Cracked in two, them and us,
you with them—me, I’m gone.
I cannot count the ways
I do not love you knows
the truth, the deeper map.
Disregard the non-talk.
Still movement settles all
we dance among dreamers
plotting out new circles
designing a pre-town
beyond the ruined will.
Can you believe these lights?

Remains of the party

They dig through our smashed lights
carving theories of us
who appear to be gone
making sense of the map
its silent glyphs tell all,
but who listens? Who will
leap beyond easy talk,
feel on their skin our ways?
The we of us still knows.
We ride spiral circles
take tea with the dreamers
offer tours of our town.

Upon a time once, happily

Joy starts with us, the sensuous dreamers
adapting to ways of inclusion, the all
takes care of the lights and knows
our maps are never truly gone.
New love circles the borders of our town,
gentle will uplifting hopeful talk.

~~~

This is a work of imagination, based in part on early life experiences in the Olmec heartland of Mexico. Poetically, I’ve employed the form of a double sestina with six syllable lines (except for the envoi, final stanza). For me, this approximates the experience of creating a passage, then crawling through it. The selected end words won’t let you veer off, and if you’re lucky, they’ll shine different facets of themselves, like quartz crystal winking from a bed of granite.

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image: Matthew Stirling and friends
in Tabasco, Mexico, 1940s, near an excavated
Olmec head (We don’t actually know what
the Olmecs called themselves, though
they must have been an amazing people.)

Meditation II

Tags

benediction, Elaine Stirling, Fibonacci spiral, inner silence, nagual, orbits of Venus and Earth, poetry, preps for larger work, sacred geometry, symmetry

Act of magic, work
upon this heart your silent
grace and seamless art.
~~~
© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Thank you to A.B. for sharing this image on Facebook.

Kingdoms of Democracy

Tags

brave new leadership, dreaming awake, Elaine Stirling, free verse, full spectrum thinking, inclusiveness, nagual, optimism is a choice, poetry, political thought, The Corporate Storyteller, wordplay

I dream in tones ideal
plummy, rich, the accolades
in gold brocade, the wine
is clear and redolent of days
to come, the carpet plush
beneath my feet, there is
no rush like seeing you
in all you have become
the scepter in your hand
it buzzes in the presence of
the sceptical, the orb you
toss to keep us on our toes
got lost; I saw it last, wedged
fast between the snaps that
hold Orion’s belt. He’s napping
now, but once he wakes
he’ll count the votes—the vote
we won for every little thing,
the voice that counts discerns
the eyes and knows the majesty
of human being human, here
inside my dream there are
no slaves, no beggary, make
no mistake—you can’t, for all
we have are opportunities
to choose anew and sigh and
blush at every turn that lifts
this kingdom of democracy
for me to get a better
look at you.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image: colour wheel by Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832

The Hermetic Poetic Guide to Sustainable Thriving

Tags

alchemy, as above so below, brave new business leadership, crown of sonnets, culminations, departures and arrivals, Egyptian mythology, Elaine Stirling, Emerald Tablets, esoterica, Hermes Trismegistus, interpretation, Law of Attraction, Mercury, nagual, Renaissance form poetry, sonnet redouble, The Corporate Storyteller, Thoth, transmutational processes

I – In Truth Lies Fiction Fact

If words like powerless should lurk within
your day’s vocabulary, if life feels
like a three-penny opera that no
one wants to pay to see—the jerks! and win
equates to loss, you hate your boss, the deals
you thought were watertight fall through, I’ll show
you something different, a map that moves
you over grooves, a slam without the damn
that dynasties who knew a thing or two
about prosperity hooked onto. Clues
have always lain around like desert sand;
agendas sinister have strewn them few
and far between. Well, here’s the all of All—
the gig, no bites, the rise without the fall.

II – Above Below, You Are the Envelope

The gig, no bites, the rise without the fall,
she’s already happening, the higher
you expands toward ever more perfection;
it’s the puny mind that falls behind, all
caught up in the past with proof! The flyer
of the gods, great Hermes, with pure gumption
set it up. You are hermetic, sealed, an
envelope with higher thoughts and lower,
and these cannot for long fly separate ways.
The skank can’t run from diplomat; to ban
the coward from the bro disempowers
both. And by the way, you’re on full display—
the best, the worst—which may initially
strike you as far beyond reality.

III – From Inside the Insidest

Strike, you, as far beyond reality
as possible! This is the stretch that’s asked
by Infinitely Smart, your future best
that calls to you from Love’s supremacy
where every answer brings the question, tasked
to fire up your passions and interest—
listen up!—then brings you strange new people,
some are cute, some acutely scary. They,
with fine detail, arrive to pave your road
with all you’ve stored nucleically—feeble
or forthright, it’s your clay and mortar. Say
what you like, friend, but blaming will corrode
pipes and dreams. Seeing mostly failure, then
you would be right, the worlds of crime and sin.

IV – Adapt: Dilute or Strengthen

You would be right. The worlds of crime and sin
will never let you reach the bottom where
the body lies, though they’ll happily let
you chase those paths of misery in
ratios of your choosing—where is the care,
the love? And finding disappointment yet
again. Ta-da! So look the other way.
Everyone’s well-meaning, doing their best;
their means may not accord with yours, but it’s
not your mess to straighten. My inner ray
of hope shines just as bright as yours. The test
is each to see and find our own; our wits
mirror belief, no more. Let’s overhaul,
for once, forgive, forget, for what!?—are all.

V – The Great Big Inside Family

For once, forgive, forget, for what!?—are all
the beads that loop you through the string of life
and leave no residue. The addict’s pull—
I want it now!—the thoughtless, inner brawl
contains the speed, but unaware, brings strife.
Your multitudes, when leaderless, are fools,
an arrow with no head, bandwagoneers.
Throw off your fears, and penetrate those thoughts!
Allow no whine to perpetrate, for once,
and then again, a third, and persevere
until you feel the loosening of knots.
This is forgive, and it’s for getting! Fronts
of old resistance will march through, you’ll see,
designed to offer upward lift, to free.

VI – Nothing Till it Hits the Earth

Designed to offer upward lift, to free,
the density of conflict is the cold
that rises heat, the solar you. Avoid
the trollish need to join the fray, the fee
is too high. Frogs trapped in a well grow old
and croak, stay sadly until death, unbuoyed.
Until you can fulfil the rise, the fall
is mere excuse, a laziness—here’s why
I can’t. Or won’t. Oh my, the litanies!
Poetic rants, a stomping folderol
when lunar cool, STFU, would dry
the swamp to peat & fuel; then hopeful breeze
must spark the flame that rises you and me,
and not enslave you to conformity.

VII – Be Fussy Who You Play With

And not enslave you to conformity,
Uriah Heepfulness, a sickish kind
of helpfulness, so terrified of debts
that fawn and scrape replace true amity,
your word becomes a roadside stall defined
by crappy goods. No need for these regrets!
Receive friends with real appreciation—
first done by being one. Priceless worth comes
from me esteeming me, then you, rising
through my eyes, we reap, no deviation,
bounty of the flooded banks, mighty sums
together. Ahead would be surprising
in the ways of gain, taint-free wealth, not lack,
if you would just drop tit for tat, leave back.

VIII – Winged Heels and Free Fall

If you would just drop tit for tat, leave back
in cluttered halls what you’ve been taught about
longevity and her twisted sister,
growing old, ride in Mercury’s backpack,
you would see the multi-lie turned inside out,
for growing ever young is the twister,
pathway of the gods and giant ages,
way beyond paltry strains of villainy,
the plod of sacrifice, lives mounting joy.
No one deprives you! Cells know all stages,
and what you like to think is tyranny
reduces thought to loss, a sad deploy.
Our body-mind remembers, so leave stealth
behind, go only forth. You’d find the wealth.

IX – Keeps the Bedbugs Away

Behind, go only forth, you’d find the wealth;
fly life out like a kite string, hand over
hand, obedient to currents outside
thinking’s limitation. Inherent health
resides at the cleft of thought. See clover
or dung, bloom or decay; in both reside
potential joy. Resentment brings the rash,
unpleasant itch, with as much misery
as the shrinking heart can hold. Are you bold
enough to make peace with power and cash?
Can you swim through the greater mystery
straight to success, accept its blessings, fold
its curves into yourself, become the lea
of kings and true democracies, a sea?

X – No Such Thing as Solid

Of kings and true democracies, a sea
divides the potencies to islands of
precise individuality. That’s
you, my dear, and me, and everybody
limpid, clear as glass, composed of pure love,
and from this heightened state the former flats
of sadness show their ephemeral selves
as mere topography, lines carved in sand,
no need to trip, much less to grieve, that sleeve
where sits your heart, little tailoring elves
wait eagerly to stitch the rips, your hand
is firmly held by all above, believe
till you can see us in our anti-black
of pure prosperity, goodbye to lack.

XI – All of This, my Doing

Of pure prosperity, goodbye to lack,
hello to glorious states of wonder,
no heavy lids, all wide-eyed here, doing
what we came to do—create new worlds. Back
there, we all made fun; today, stand under
majesty’s umbrella, Tree of Being
in full bloom and giving fruit, forbid to
none. At times, you are the bark that scratches,
I, the root, that digs around until you
bite. The games of chase go on, your catches
love the being caught, and you’ve stopped dropping
them at my door. We know each other’s hue
from blinding floods before the rainbow’s wealth,
that crazy stressful enemy of health.

XII – Wondrous Continuous

That crazy stressful enemy of health,
that scourging, false humility who wails,
I am not worthy, yes I am, but you’re
not, to compost has been turned, death blow dealt;
the body-mind precisely tuned regales
in nothing less than plenitude, well-shored
by evidence of pure design and form,
from which above-below can spin the whole
of you to match the Heaven scent of Earth.
This is the dance of Love, the Court reborn
and effortless the steps, a caracol
whose speed like stillness feels, painless rebirth.
To have, to hold becomes I know, I’ve got.
Pick up your bed and rise alive, why not?

XIII – Three in One, I’ve Won

Pick up your bed and rise alive, why not?
Let possums who play dead attract their own.
Three-fold Trismegistus has arrived, winged
feet in every word, now and then, a spot
of silence to absorb the beauty grown
within and out, serenity, her ringed
magnificence the banner that uplifts
medieval to full good arrived intact,
of ever after happily, the truth
we sought is here, my dear, we won the gifts
that fairy tale and myth sustained, our pact
with joy all colours of our spectral youth
we may employ the love we freely sought
for fun is why we came, to thrive, our lot.

XIV – The Solar Truth & Nothing But

For fun is why we came, to thrive, our lot,
and this is all of Thoth I’ve come to say.
My lunar friends, the twilit souls, you are
as I am, where you choose to be for now.
Our residence is change, movement the plot
of every tale, and now this peacock’s play
is done, I fold my tail. You will allow
some small affection to remain, I hope,
though I shall not come back this way again.
The spiral road does not repeat, we climb,
we soar and drop, but what we’ve done to cope
before is born afresh, and what this pen
sets down cannot be chased. Some other time
we have already laughed and would begin,
if words like powerless should lurk within.

XV – This Crown, Forever Yours

If words like powerless should lurk within
the gig, no bites, the rise without the fall
strike you as far beyond reality,
you would be right. The worlds of crime and sin—
for once, forgive, forget, for what!?—are all
designed to offer upward lift, to free
and not enslave you to conformity.
If you would just drop tit for tat, leave back
behind, go only forth, you’d find the wealth
of kings and true democracies, a sea
of pure prosperity, goodbye to lack,
that crazy stressful enemy of health.
Pick up your bed and rise alive, why not?
For fun is why we came, to thrive, our lot.

~~~

Author’s Note: This 15-stanza poem is a Crown of Sonnets, also known as Sonnet Redoublé. Constructing such a piece is great fun, for you get the chance to travel a theme with 14 opening lines that fold up to conclude with the 15th, crowning stanza. The theme I borrowed and interpreted is the Emerald Tablet of Hermes, which has been translated into 13 or 14 tenets—perfect shape for this form. I’ve used the rhyme scheme ABCABCDEFDEFGG, for its combing effect. I am grateful to John Donne and various poetic academies, now lost to time, who conceived the form and left for us an invigorating challenge.

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image of Hermes Thrismegistus from various websites,
original artist unknown

Through

Tags

beauty, brave new business leadership, Elaine Stirling, form poetry, freedom, interpretation, nagual, Navarrete quatrain, new mythology, Queen of Heaven, re-creation, self-perception, successful transitions, The Corporate Storyteller, Tower of Babel, transformation, vibrational reality

I am through with committees
of old men, their dour laws
entangling, corrupt, assigning fall
to life when birthright seeks to rise.

I am through with cliques
of sisters locked in regimens of iron
man & green, so terrified of sustenance
that bondage smells like bacon.

I am through with junkyards
of the empty word, booby-trapped,
spring-loaded to react, defending injuries
that should have quit their weeping years ago.

I am through to fields abloom
impassioned by the ever-towering man
where every day’s a feast of freedom multi-hued
& words like me can dance, sweet naked in the rain.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

Kit, my Kaboodle

Tags

authenticity, brave new leadership, duality, enjoyment, free verse, honouring feelings, humour, individuality, intention, light and dark, lightness of being, my voice is my voice, nagual, parody, poetry, satire, self-importance, self-pity, The Corporate Storyteller, uniqueness, vibrational reality

I have a caboose
at the end of my train
with an imp that enjoys
thumbing noses and moons
at the sun when a new dawn
arises my eyes need to blink
and the imp sees his chance
and he hangs from the tail
where he shouts at the passing
terrain, whatcha you gonna do
now, pretty boy?

My imp’s name is Kit, and I do
try to shush him, though not very
much ‘cause he’s got the touch of
a jester at heart, and my brain with
its lore is a bit of a bore, and my
soul isn’t whole unless I can
laugh at the bridges we burn
and the tracks we lay down
and pretend when we crash
that they weren’t our
own handiwork.

The thing is, we all
have to run on the steam
that we bring, and if mine
blows too hot or too cold in
your face, and yours makes
me yawn, we could still show
some grace—not go stupid nutty
all over the place, when our tracks
must diverge. I have no intention
of leaving sweet Kit at the station
or anywhere else for I love how
how he thinks and he sees and
he laughs—he’s divine. Yes,
Kit, my kaboodle, is mine!

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image of caboose from http://www.bbcrc.org