A Poem, and a Bonus Bumper Sticker

Looking about for a poem for this week, I noticed this one, and it reminded me of Songbird, whose (poetic) contributions to Phantom's Wednesday Whine this week were about her husband's extended absence. So while I meant to keep going to the May Sarton books, here's instead something by Minnie Bruce Pratt, from We Say We Love Each Other. May time fly for any of you who are missing your partners tonight.

"In a Solitary Place"

I was going to write to you about romance:
since I have thought it a mirage, to love another
out of need, to let an angle of light, some distance,
old thirsts, spill her, a pool of water on the horizon:

since I have loved you and, as we neared, as illusions
dispersed, begun to see what I had not noticed
or had not imagined, the flame, emerald green, flashed
by the sun just after it sets, just before it rises

But tonight the continent stretches between us,
flat grey sand. I haven't touched you in weeks,
won't be able to for more, have been in meetings
all day with others who are depressed, drunk three cups
of coffee, half a glass of beer, touched myself roughly,
come with salt bitter tears, don't feel hopeful.

I want to be glad now in my solitary place,
to be able to call up green grass from my day's desert.
I know your absence does not keep me from this, but I know
your glance and hand would be for me lighting at night.

And, a bonus bumper sticker, which I spotted at a great neighborhood restaurant Curious Girl and I ate in following the monthly groovy Shabbat service, which we attended with some neighbor-friends. Politica is largely incapacitated at the moment with a painful rash, so CG and I are trying to stay out of the house enough to give Politica some quiet healing space, without being gone so much that CG gets upset. So far we're managing OK, and tonight's dinner was a wonderful discovery of a neighborhood place that's really trying to be a community center. There was a folk singer playing this evening, and as she left, I saw on her guitar:

Taxation without the right to marry is tyranny.

Politica just rattled off a list of helpful places fighting for marriage rights:

• Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund
• Freedom to Marry
• ACLU
• Human Rights Campaign
• Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies
• GLAD

So whether you're planning a politically active weekend, a cozy weekend, a weekend with your honey or without, best wishes for some rest and relaxation. Shabbat shalom.

friday poetry blogging