Jonathan Blake
One More Myth of Great Beauty
Often I go back / to that dip of her head when people talk / about this one or that one of the great beauties. ~Jack Gilbert
Thirty years ago I sat in the sun
On the small stoop of my
Basement studio in San Francisco,
Lost to the song of the ocean side
Tides when she stepped barefoot
Out of the door next to mine,
Her skin luminous and white
In her red two-piece bathing suit,
Arms raised as she stopped to pull
Her long blond hair behind her,
Surprised as suddenly as I,
Smiling shyly as she bowed
Her head and walked by, neither
Of us speaking, both of us changed.
I did not ask for her name.
She did not ask for mine.
She does not know she lives
Within me after all these years:
That I have grown old; that she remains
Eternally young.
After the Long Years of Marriage
After love
I lie naked
On the sheets
Of our August
Bed, tangled
In the shadows
Of late afternoon;
Eyes closed, I drift
Like a small boat
Out to the edge
Of dream until I
Return, pulled back
By the flickering
Awareness of her soft
Song: drift away again,
Return, tethered to her voice:
A ballad that is the myth
Of this story.
She stands at the dresser
Barefoot, thin robe open,
Rearranging the dark flames
Of gladiola in the tall vase,
Singing. I do not know
When she moves over me
Once more, bends close to my chest
As if in prayer, softly blowing
On my cooling skin with care,
Slowly, as one does
When one wants
To reignite a fire.
Jonathan Blake has been following the gospel of his heart his entire life. Writer, educator, arts organizer, he makes his home in central Massachusetts. His book of poems, In the Kingdom, will soon be published by Lost Valley Press and can be found at lostvalleypress.com, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
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