Flora’s Faces
1. Grande Dame
Puffed peony,
your head droops
with night’s dew.
Your pink musk
crushed
and overblown,
fades loosely
into the dusk
of memory's balm.
2. Lily
Slender neck
stretches up through
muddy marsh
to open and float
face up
beneath the sun,
while deep below
tender toes
still grip the mire.
Rooted in slime
she flowers,
head held above
the water-line.
Shedding the mid-life moon
Milkweed-birthed,
we crawl, learn
just enough;
then curl up, wooled
to ward off the chill
of transformation
Like pupae
twigged to tree,
we await heat to
seep through chrysalis;
coalesce dreams,
morph wings.
Remembering Eden
With each moon-tide
ebb and swell, broken
bits of shell
rustle rain-stick songs.
A slice of smile
contains her mirth,
as the night surfs
against her shores.
Her secret, pearled
in salty broth,
spills into
the sibilance of night;
she remembers
the snake and her eyes -
Oh, they shine,
like abalone,
like Mother-of-pearl.