Your morning eyes
still full of night
fall on me
soft as sunrise.
You need a silent rest
and I need recumbency.
I find a peaceful place,
I recline and read and write
throughout the night,
come to bed at dawn
to greet you as you rise.
But office workers
call at nine, nine thirty, ten
and so with blurry eyes I
pretend lucidity,
then fall back to sleep
until you return at two.
My head and ankle
have schedules
out of sync with offices,
though I’m in tuneful counterpoint
with you.
In the day
they brush past one another,
utter essential words,
questions,
instruction.
But at night,
they brush against one another,
whisper non-essential words,
passions,
exhortation.
He relies on the strength
of her heart strings.
She winds them around him
to hold him together
when he might rattle apart
in the shaking, quaking times.
When she is weak and broken,
when she can not stretch her arms,
wide enough
to wrap heart strings around him,
he trembles and crumbles
apart.
When she is weak and broken,
he does not consider
that he could pretend
to be strong.
He could hold her heart strings,
and spin into her.
“A man like Matthew never frees himself of the shadows completely, but perhaps it is necessary to embrace the darkness in order to love him.”
~Deb Harkness in Shadow of Night
.
.
He thinks that he is so hard to love
he polishes his prickles
scours his scowls
brushes those glowering brows
as if this gruff front will keep his heart whole,
and impervious to the heat of a warm embrace.
But she wears fireproof gloves,
confronts him with frankness,
and forces him to face his fears.
She wraps his arms around her and
shows him his image in the mirror of her love.
In Outlander,
Jamie, the good husband, is always giving his wife, Claire, good advice.
He gives advice to keep her safe.
Stay here in this clearing, away from the soldiers.
Sage advice.
Stay here in the hold, away from the pirates.
Good counsel.
Claire, a modern woman with a mind of her own, makes her own decisions.
Her decisions often run counter to Jamie’s.
Invariably, Jamie has to bail her out of the trouble she’s landed in,
because she didn’t listen to him.
Today,
my good husband came home for lunch and said,
“Don’t go out there. It’s treacherous! I had to put down salt,
to melt the ice on the driveway!”
When he returned to work,
I saw the mail lady come.
I’m expecting a parcel.
There’s salt down.
What’s the worst that could happen?
I stepped on islands made by salt pellets
down our steep drive,
crossed the slippery road, and was within a meter of the mailbox
when I was splayed out on the edge of the road like a frog.
Ah! So that’s the worse that could happen.
Stay here in the house, away from the ice, he’d said
And after, my good husband didn’t even say,
“I told you so.”
Oh, if I could turn back time!
.
5 hours in Emergency because I have a spiral fracture in my ankle, and apparently orthopaedic surgeon will screw in a plate tomorrow, but at least I don’t have to pay anything for this adventure thanks to Canadian MediCare!
🙂
Outlander is written by Diana Gabaldon. It’s an amazing historical, time-travel, adventure, romance, amazing novel that you should read. My husband adores it, and tried to get everyone he knows to read it, as do I.
He needs a bed,
and she has one,
so she welcomes him to it,
and he lies.
She wishes
he were the sort of man
who wears a fedora
with his jeans,
but has learned not
to expect so much
from a farm boy.
In time
oft heard
silent memories
mingle in the mist
In time
oft mentioned
mysteries dance
upon your tongue.
In time
oft discovered
dreams twist destinies
toward truth.
In time
oft wished
entwined desires
develop into twin
devastations.