Saline

.

Late at night

after she washes her face

and slips from her dress

.

she becomes a teardrop

quaking with grief

on the tip of God’s tongue,

.

but there —

see how the light

shines through.

.

.

©  2018  Betty Hayes Albright 

.

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Pearls

.

 

He shells

those cornered dreams

that rub us raw

secreting love

around torn edges

polishing

with his own tears

pearls of poetry.

.

.

(c) 1995,  2018  Betty Hayes Albright

.

(Re-posted from 2012)

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Short Ode to March

.

Primroses!

how winter thins

as shadows quicken

in sunlit trees

.

as dew swells

the un-sheared lawn

with promises, promises

.

and dreams are joined

at the wing.

.

.

© 1993, 2018  Betty Hayes Albright 

.

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Be There

.

Be there in our dreams, Love,

hold us in our waking,

be close when we dance with joy

and when our hearts are aching.

.

Love, be in the gifts we give

and in those we receive,

be there when the white dove lights

and when he takes his leave.

.

Be there when the tide comes in

and when it’s flowing out,

Love be near us in our faith

and nearer when we doubt.

.

Be there when the moon is waxing,

stay close when it wanes,

Love, be in our song’s first measure

and its last refrain.

.

.

(c) 2003, 2017  Betty Hayes Albright

.

Wishing everyone a peaceful, hopeful, light-filled, New Year!

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Rain (two Shadorma’s)

.

.

There are times

love is a fine rain

misting down

all for naught

evaporating before

it can hit the ground

.

but sometimes

love peels back the rain

exposing sun

sending heat

palpitations to the earth

handing us a rose.

.

.

(c) 2017  Betty Hayes Albright

.

Shadorma November

.

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One Candle

(a Mayberrie poem)

.

Once a week

she braves the village,

trades her woven scarves

for bread and cheese,

and candle sticks.

She offers just a veiled smile

and searches every face;

she dare not speak

of things she shouldn’t know.

 .

At dusk she climbs the deer path

to her cottage on the hill

and there she lights one candle stick.

As wisps of smoke slide up the wall

like lovers twined

she gazes at the flame and sees

battle-weary men at rest

tending to their fire;

and there!

in the shadowed edge

a single silhouette.

He turns her way

as though he feels her near.

 

She reaches through

the waxen light

and hangs her heart

around his neck,

then throwing kisses

to the night

she banks the fire

in his eyes

and blows the candle out.

.

©  2012, 2017  Betty Hayes Albright

.

(A re-post, revised)

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Fog

.

It softens the edges

of tree and crow,

blunts our point of view.

We can turn a corner

in the fog

and never know.

See the old man

in the mist?

He is a shaman

shifting our perspective

with his white breath.

He knows that fog

is a giant, downy feather

that blesses our fever,

then suspends us

between all that ever was

and all that ever can be

in the alpha-omega soup

of possibility.

.

© 2013, 2017  Betty Hayes Albright

.

(A re-post from four years ago. )

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