Table of Contents
Fierce Longing
There are moments
when making love
when a door
to something else
opens.
I am never prepared.
There is no preparation
for the way it takes me
and leaves me.
Sometimes it is brought
by a movement of tenderness:
soft lips that brush my forehead
and murmur my name
as the fire burns through
me making
my hips rise
and my blood moan.
Sometimes it is brought
by a moment of great courage:
eyes that dare to meet
and hold mine as the flood
of silky amber honey
takes us both over the edge.
And sometimes
it is brought
by the sting of what is not
and the memory of
tenderness and courage
that has been.
And when that moment
catches me
and tosses me
I am helpless.
The words spill
unbidden
into the night:
"I want ... I want ... I want..."
Unfinished
they leave me
dangling
suspended over the chasm
of my own bottomless
desire.
Reaching
aching
grasping
for that fleeting something
I glimpsed
or imagined
just beyond.
Gone before
I could name it.
The breath catches
a strangled sob
tears me
opens me
and I fall back
eyes wide and
dazed
on damp pillows
my face
wet with tears.
And his eyes
stare
bewildered
frightened by the fierceness
of my longing.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer © 1995
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Perpetual Present
I try to memorize him
with the soft pads of my fingertips.
Closing my eyes
and slowly tracing
the cheekbone's rise and gleam
the moist, fragile skin around the eye
the jawbone
square, angled, tight
roughened by the days relentless growth.
I will my heart into my fingertips
and move them through the soft curling
hair on the broad chest
rising and falling
rising and falling over the heart.
My hand moves down the hard belly
And I find
I cannot remember,
in every detail,
the line of his face
I touched only a moment ago.
It has already begun to fade.
And I had wanted to hold it forever.
He strokes my arm
runs his broad fingers
down the naked curve of my back
over the smoothness of my thigh
draped across him.
Is he trying to memorize me also?
We cannot hang on to this moment
Even knowing it is the last moment.
Life pulls us
like a great tidal wave
sweeping us forward
dragging us into the perpetual present.
Our memories of this moment
will change and be shaped
by new desires and disappointments.
And I will forget I knew even this.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer © 1995
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Oatmeal
It's hard not to think of you
as I stand at the stove stirring oatmeal
looking out over the lake.
The morning sun touches the water
rippled by the warm breeze.
My sons' voices drift to me,
earnest conversation as they do last night's
supper dishes at the picnic table
under the cedars.
Finally learned how to make your own oatmeal,
after countless mornings of waiting
for me to do it.
And I did.
Hard to understand why a man
who can make a multi-million dollar deal
can't read those four lines of instructions
on the oatmeal bag.
Sometimes
when the breeze blows hot
and I float
dozing on the air mattress
drifting across the bay
I catch the sound of your laughter
booming out across the water
mixed with the shouts and battle cries of the boys,
all of you in a deadly water fight.
And I raise my head to catch the sound...
and it's gone
like a ghost shimmering in the heat waves off the sand.
And the tightness in the centre of my body
aches like I have been kicked
and lost my breath
and may never get it back.
But there is nothing to be done
so I move my head
over the edge of the mattress
to float in the crystal, cold water.
My hair
a bronze mass of tendrils
drifts around me
and I let the hot tears
stream from the corners of my eyes
into the lake's icy depths
without a sound.
I want to make oatmeal one morning
and not ache in the centre of my body.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer © 1995
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Bluebeard
There is a European tale of one woman, determined to redeem with her love the man with dark secrets in his past. Versions of the story differ: In some she is rescued by her brothers; in others she is murdered as were his previous wives.
Finally
the soul railed against heart's caution
and I stepped up to the edge of the cliff
and let the storm roll over me.
The wind tore at my hair
Rain lashed at my eyes
I raised my fist and
cried out over the thunder:
Bluebeard, hear me!
Either finish me or be finished with me!
I let the story take me!
And it did.
Finish me or be finished with me ...
Which of these I and the story chose
I cannot tell.
The wind has died to a whisper
The rain eased to single tears
The thunder a muffled murmur of discontent.
But I do not know
if my brothers arrived in time or
if I am with my sisters
in the blood-filled cellar.
I do not know
if I am free
or bound beyond forever.
And the heart grieves at either answer.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer © 1995
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The Moment Before
I want to touch
the sharp taste
of the moment in between
the second just before
the place where
the breath catches
in anticipation.
It's the scent of heat held in the air
between two mouths
reaching for each other, hungry.
The shine of moisture on slightly parted lips
just before
it melts into
the wetness of the other.
It is the skin that tingles
waiting
fine hairs at attention
reaching
aching.
It is the places that have not yet been touched
but know they will be.
It is the smooth, quivering paleness
of the inner thigh
as the outer is stroked and kneaded.
The muscles of the abdomen tightening
the back arching slightly
begging
come here
quickly
slowly.
There, in that moment
do not take your eyes from mine.
I am here
awake
1 am
reaching
to be
met.
Do not touch me and keep your soul
out of your fingertips.
Die into me
or do not come into me at all.
Ever after is in this moment
happily or not.
Sacrifice the daydream.
Dare to hold the desire
for a great love.
Be with me.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer © 1995
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Sacrifice
I want to write about sacrifice.
About the Death willingly received for Love.
About the one hung on the tree.
Long ago, in a time before ours
when the dream fragmented
and the worlds of the people and spirit
careened out of balance
the people knew
something precious had to be offered
to restore the dance.
So one who was gifted
a leader
one filled with beauty
would offer to hang
and die
on the summertree.
It had to be done willingly
an act of love
remaining conscious
as the sun and the moon made their journeys
three times.
Bearing the aloneness
and the pain
of limbs stretched out of their sockets
of muscles torn
of hunger and thirst
never surrendering to the beckoning darkness.
And sometimes,
but not often,
The Lord of the Forest
or the Red Goddess of the Moon
would spare the one on the tree.
But it was not expected.
This is the time of my summertree.
I am hung.
I choose this willingly
for love of my own soul
for love of life.
But ...
it is hard.
My heart feels stretched
between settling for
and hoping for.
I cannot end the tension by choosing
the ruthless cutting away,
the fast clean death of the sword.
Nor can I sink languidly beneath the waters
like Ophelia.
I am still awake
and the pain scars through me.
I breathe
and wait.
I will not pray for release
only for courage
and compassion
Oriah Mountain Dreamer © 1995
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Night Tears
There is a crying
that happens at night
that does not come
while the light is with us.
There are things that cannot
be evaded
once the sun goes down.
Small nocturnal creatures
with sharp white teeth
silently gnaw at the edges of
belly and heart
when the darkness descends
and the void inside
grows larger.
It can split you open.
And the bone
in the centre of your chest
aches
like the cracked wishing bone
from the turkey breast.
And if we are strong enough
to be weak enough
we are given a wound
that never heals.
It is the gift
that keeps the heart open.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer © 1995
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Twyla
Grandmother Twyla Nitsch is a Seneca Elder of the Wolf Clan.
At her kitchen table
sharing tea
in the pale morning
I ask the widow,
"How long were you married?"
And she replies,
“I am married.
Though my husband died twelve years ago
he is still
as he was for eighteen years
before that
my husband."
I can see in her eyes
and in the way her hand reaches
for the cream
that it is true.
And I know
last night,
alone in her bed
as she slipped across the borderland
she felt him curled around her
the soft hair of his chest
against her thin back
his strong thighs
along the curve of her aging buttocks
his wide fingers
gently cupping her softly sagging breast.
It is, as it has always been.
The separation
of years
or even worlds
cannot
dull their ache for each other.
Silently
her watery blue eyes
watch my face
as my fingers
trace the sun's patterns
on the plastic tablecloth.
I long for a great love.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer © 1995
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My Breasts
My breasts
are my mother's breasts
sagging, stretched, flattened
large brown-pink nipples
flecked with small dots
like the tiny bumps on the uncooked turkey
where feather quills have been removed.
The areola is edged with thin blue veins
and sometimes sprouts wiry hairs
to be plucked.
At nine I walk into the bathroom
filled with warm steam
and the scent of Chantilly Lace talcum powder
and look away quickly
when my eyes touch my mother's breast
as she bends over to dry her feet.
But she catches me
and answers my look
with a slash of her voice.
"Yes, this is what you did to me
you and your brother.
My breasts got smaller with each of you.
Good thing I didn't nurse or I'd have
nothing left."
But we both know it is not
the size that is mourned
but the smooth firmness
and the delicate shell pink
of unstretched nipples
reaching up to meet the world.
I look down at my blue sneakers
ashamed at the ugliness of life
and wonder what she feels she has left
for herself.
She tells me how she refused to nurse
repeating the story
of the woman next to her in the maternity ward.
The nurse yelled at the woman for
eating too much fruit
causing her nursing baby's bottom
to turn red and raw.
I have heard this story so often I can see it:
the nurse in starched white reliable efficiency
indignantly removing the offending fruit basket;
the woman in her pink bathrobe indulgently lying
in bed
her face stricken with shame at her gluttony
the baby, its bottom like raw meat
wailing in agony.
There is a fierceness in my mother
as she tells the story and adds,
"Who needed that!
You had to watch everything you ate
couldn't go anywhere."
I wonder where she wanted to go.
I wonder how so many untruths
so much shame
could be sown and cultivated so quickly
and so strongly
that a whole generation of women
stopped the impulse of millennia
to suckle their babies.
Her doctor, she tells me, was old-fashioned
and angry at her decision.
Asked her what she thought those things were for,
anyway - putting under sweaters?
I see her in the red matching sweater set as she tells
me proudly how she held to her choice.
It must have taken great courage
at nineteen
alone in his office
to defy the absolute authority
of God the Father, the Doctor.
When two hard bumps appear on my chest
like traitors in our midst
I say nothing
until she accuses me
of stuffing the front pockets
of my peach-coloured blouse
with kleenex.
Ignoring my denials
she rams a hand
into the offending pocket
and opens her eyes in surprise
as I wince in pain
and she finds
no tissue.
The bumps grow,
never large
but round enough
to bring forth my Grandmother's
declaration that those of us
without bras
or girdles
or corsets
or stockings
are all "bouncing around like cows."
I never saw my grandmother's breasts
behind their cages
of linen and wire
and do not dare to
imagine them
even now.
Not too much later
on a warm summer night
parked by the lakeshore
in an old Dodge Dart
the boy whose kisses
were improving with
practice
moves his fingers tentatively
across the soft cotton of my
halter top
lightly brushing my nipples.
Bolts of electric blue
flash through me
making my back arch
and my legs tense
and my mouth ravenous on his.
My response is so explosive
he jumps
and, with one sleeve caught
on the gear shift between us,
somehow gets the other
wrapped in the steering wheel
sending a loud long blast of the horn
out over the lake.
Angry cries erupt from
others parked in nearby cars.
And I laugh and laugh from the centre
of my soft belly
until my sides ache
at our awkward innocence
and at the discovery
of the delicious and frightening desire that
pours through my limbs
from these small breasts.
A year later I arrive
a girl from the bush of the north
in the big dark city.
I walk from the bus terminal
to my small rented room
with my back pack
long hair loose down my back
dressed in my blue jeans
and a white T-shirt
over unfettered breasts.
A man passes
stares at my chest
and speaks loudly,
"What kind of girl are you to be walking
around like that?"
I cross my arm over my breasts and feel
the crimson heat of shame.
Years later
my breasts grow with milk
straining, filling
firm and dripping
for the hungry mouths of my sons
each in his turn
drawing his life
greedily from me
with small sighs
and moans
of exquisite contentment
at all hours of day and night.
At times I sleep for an hour
trying desperately to fill myself
and awake to his cry
of hunger
or loneliness
or fear
and offering my breast
watch as he
sucks that one hour of rest
from my body
leaving me empty
and struggling to stand again.
I never regretted 'it
though my body struggled
and fevers raged in aching limbs.
I wanted to offer the best of what I had
for their beginnings
unsure of what wisdom I had to give
in the on-going journey.
I smiled
even at 3 a.m.
when one of them
finally finished
stretched, arching his back
and wrinkling his velvet brow
sighed
and lay his pink cheek
shiny wet from the sweet milk
against my breast
hoping
as we all do
to sleep and dream
connected to the source of peace
and contentment.
My mother
came
and saw
and left.
Years later,
my sons half grown
and my breasts half shrunk like
those I saw on my mother
in the bathroom years ago,
a would-be lover
at a workshop on spiritual sexuality
suggests a little plastic surgery
might move me
closer to the image of the Goddess
I want to learn to embody
in the sacredness of my female form.
Closer to the image of the Goddess he is seeking,
more likely.
I move away from him
but the idea is planted
and I roll it around
like a marble in the mouth.
I collect a little information:
the costs
the risks
the options.
But only one bit sticks:
there is a loss of sensation in the nipple with implants
and a touch
a kiss
or a well-placed tongue
can still send waves of light
through my limbs
though rarely so strongly
as in the Dodge Dart
and never so unanticipated.
I will not surrender this small pleasure.
I have no daughter
in whom to leave
these stories of the breast.
Perhaps it is just as well.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer © 1995
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