.
Old gypsy spun around and winked
and then brewed up a potion
of swirling colors for the dawn
to fling upon the ocean.
.
And there I saw horizons dance
and ripples in the sky,
the rising of an ancient tide,
a glint in the cosmic eye.
.
I heard the heartbeat of a soul
in currents from afar,
the drumming of an answering wave,
the splash of a shooting star.
.
I felt the rapture of the deep,
saw gold dust in the brine,
the yin and yang of sandcastles,
the hide – the seek – the find.
.
Old gypsy laughed and disappeared,
her trance broken at last
and as the sun rose in my breast
t’was Love whose spell was cast.
.
(c) 1995, 2016 Betty Hayes Albright
Seasonings 
Made me think of that old song “Love Potion #9″…brought a smile.
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Hi Charlie – yes, that was a good old song! (I was in junior high, back then. Every now and then they play it on the oldies station and it takes me back – waaaay back! 🙂 )
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Oh, Betty–I love this SO Much! My fave phrase is “gold dust in the brine”–WONDERFUL!!
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Thanks, Caddo! 🙂
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Absolutely Beautiful!!
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Thank you, Linda! 🙂
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Your words put me in a trance, Betty! I loved this! xx
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Glad you liked it, Lauren. 🙂
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Fantastic, Betty!
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Thanks, David! 🙂
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Lovely, lovely words!
Anna :o]
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Thank you for saying so, Anna!
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Wonderfully beautiful or Beautifully wonderful, either way I love it 🙂
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Thanks for such a wonderfully nice (or nicely wonderful) comment, Martin! 😀
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I think, if it does not insult you, Betty, that your imagination works like mine. You start with an image, in this case the romantic image of gypsy spinning around in a wild dance, and then let ever more fantastic notions dance off the page: horizons dance, a glint in the cosmic eye, the heartbeat of the soul, and as the tension rises as the result of the rapture of images that have almost ratcheted beyond imagination, you bring us back to a laughing gypsy, reality, but with one magnificent difference: “t’was Love whose spell was cast.” As in all good storytelling something significant has changed as the result of events, and the poet herself has gone from one point in her life to a glorious new point. She has changed too.
This kind of poetry is fun, filled with magic, imaginative, and captures the reader in a poem dance that swirls their heart with a dos e do, as in square dancing, and flings them paradoxically, into the magic, or tragedy, or glory of reality.
Mostly your kind of writing demands a letting go that I suspect most people feel uncomfortable with if they find it inside themselves. It demands that you dance on the head of a pin with angels and trust that language and images will spin out of your imagination into your head, saving you from falling off a cliff into the River Lethe down in the canyon.
But the point I wish to make is, this poem is magical, daring as a young woman on a flying trapeze, and you pull it off so wonderfully that I bow and tip my hat to you, hoping, of course, that I don’t fall over in the process.
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Once again you honor me with your complimentary words, Thomas. Thank you! I don’t have an explanation for my own process of writing – but it does begin as you suggest – a single image, plus a need to communicate a feeling, memory or “message”. Often it’s something from the ineffable that needs to be translated via a metaphor (though often it’s impossible to truly capture what one needs to say). I suspect most poets have this difficulty – words are so limiting, at times! But thank heavens we have them. 🙂
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I really love that!! there is something romantic about the gypsy the real gypsy!
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Thanks, Willow – (methinks I’m a gypsy at heart. 🙂 )
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You manage to draw the whole of creation into one ecstatic dance … the dance of love.
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Maybe the gypsy was Shiva in disguise?
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Shhh.
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I know I’m not the first to say–Magical! I love gypsy stories!
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We are indeed our own fortune tellers and the creators of our own magical destinies!
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