.
Do you remember
silver man,
when we were two wings
flying one dream
beneath warm quilts?
One night
I couldn’t breathe
and tore the covers off
when you couldn’t fathom
the unseen and threw
your pillow down.
We rolled
from the edges
of the bed
and let the feathers
settle
into the spread of time.
Still now and then
one catches my eye
floating to the floor.
.
(c) 1993, 2017 Betty Hayes Albright
.
Seasonings 
This has a real dreamlike feel. 🌹
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Must be all the feathers. 😉😄💫🤗 Thanks for being here, Willow 💝
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💗😱🏵️🏵️🏵️
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Oof, I could run with this one – love this, phenomenally well written. I would put it in league with one of my favorite poets, Juliet Kono , who wrote something I feel compelled to share with you, in her book Tsunami Years. She’s an amazing Hawaii talent, very well known here, and has been published numerous times; many awards. I owe her for my longtime poetry group here on this island:
The Waters of My Body
Two days after giving birth,
my body was like a boat the sprung a leak –
breasts heavy with milk.
I wet the sheets.
I leaked through sleep and dreams.
I’d get up and my hair would be sticky,
matted like a cat’s wet fur.
Milk gushed into the mouth
of my child, and sometimes,
I thought he’d choke
on all the milk my body made.
And who was I?
Young girl in a pony tail
too young to be a mother
who went out for walks
and grew spots on her t-shirts
that spread larger
than the high beams of passing cars.
I remember a young man,
both of us surprised
at sap rising, slowly,
like thermometer mercury,
the weight of semen.
And all summer,
in the back seat of his car,
the water of our bodies rose and fell-
a water table of desire
that entered into the pleasure
of our first experience.
The encounter with water
has always been met with surprise:
menarche, broken water bags, water in the lungs.
Each water with its own color,
its own peculiar smell.
Sweet or swampish,
or fishy,
like the open-air seafood markets around town.
All my life
I could have drowned.
How is it that
the water has receded
from the shoreline of the body,
now that I’m older.
How is it that
all the water has abandoned
the sand, pebbles, driftwood,
left them open to the wind
and stranded above the waterline.
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Bela, thank you for such high praise! And I love her poem. It’s so true, describes it so well, these many different waters of our bodies. Very relatable and I appreciate your sharing it with me. Hadn’t heard of Juliet Kono until now. Her talent is inspiring (in the same way that yours inspires). 🙂
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And now it’s My turn to suck up a sweet compliment. Julia is one I admire, for sure. Aloha, Betty – and thanks. Glad you enjoyed the poem.
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Oh Betty, you have captured something so real and true and mystical in its own right. Not sure why, but it brings tears to my eyes. Thank you for sharing it today, of all days. Beautiful.
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Margaret, thank you, it means a lot to me that you saw something mystical in it. Not sure what made me post it today since it’s an old poem. Glad the timing must’ve been right for you. 💕
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So interesting to see how one poem engenders others. 🙂
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I always find that interesting too, Charlie. Guess we poets all relate. 🙂
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It’s those sorts of moments that will give poetry its wings. Happy to have lingered here. Thank you.
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Thank you for lingering, Audrey. 🙂
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Beautiful, thoughtful and haunting…..so lovely.
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Thank you so very much! 🙂
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I think bela really nailed it in her comment so I’m loathe to add anything other than, everything she has said is so true and this really got me – so haunting, sad, gorgeous, lovely, backward looking, and the first line – well. It’s a master.
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Thank you, Candice, your feedback means a lot to me. 💙
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This one slips through the fingers, demanding many rereadings.
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Just words and memories, like so many feathers…😉
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Adrift on the breeze.
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Add those decisions (from another thread) to the mix….
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