Life in a nutshell!

Jesse, Bean, Sebastian, Willow and Jamie.

Virginia

One year ago you left the earth. You were my best friend, my sister, and so much like a mother. I've never gotten over this heartache, and at times wonder if I ever will. The past few weeks I've been banging into you, as I often do, just more often lately. I wake in the middle of the night hearing you call my name. When full consciousness returns it is then I realize you are not here.  I remember the last time I saw you. You said "I love you" with more eloquence than usual. I think of that day endlessly. Thanksgiving, 2009 when we parted promising to talk soon. 

I walk in the woods in an attempt to heal. I hear your laugh. That non laugh, sweet exhalations I guess you'd call it.  That no longer are. I sit by the pond and feel you there. That comforting presence. 

I still don't believe you are gone from my life. Most of the time I feel in a fog, a dreamlike state, this surreal space. And think when I wake up you'll be there. I'll tell you "I had this crazy dream," and you'll laugh, and say "I'll always be here for you" and laugh..that sweet laugh I miss so dearly. 

I'll remember you

When the wind blows through the piney wood

It was you who understood

Though I'd never say

That I done it the way

That you'd have like me to

In the end

I'll remember you

Virginia Frances Riggins Spitler 

August 26, 1948 ~ December 19, 2009

The Cat's Song

Mine, says the cat,, putting out his paw of darkness

My lover, my friend, my slave, my toy says

the cat making on your chest his gesture of drawing

milk from his mother's forgotten breasts. 

Let us walk in the woods says the cat.

I'll teach you to read the tabloid of scents,

to fade into shadow, wait like a trap, to hunt.

Now I lay this plump warm mouse on your mat. 

You feed me, I try to feed you, we are friends,

says the cat, although I am more equal than you.

Can you leap twenty times the height of your body?

Can you run up and down trees? Jump between roofs?

Let us rub our bodies together and talk of touch. 

My emotions are pure as salt crystals and as hard.

My lusts glow like my eyes. I sing to you in the mornings

walking round and round your bed and into your face.

Come I will teach you to dance as naturally

as falling asleep and waking and stretching long, long.

I speak greed with my paws and fear with my whiskers.

Envy lashes my tail. Love speaks me entire, a word

of fur. I will teach you to be still as an egg

and to slip like the ghost of wind through the grass.

Marge Piercy

Friendship

Friendship By Henry David Thoreau

I think awhile of Love, and while I think,

         Love is to me a world,
         Sole meat and sweetest drink,
         And close connecting link
            Tween heaven and earth.

I only know it is, not how or why,
         My greatest happiness;
         However hard I try,
         Not if I were to die,
            Can I explain.

I fain would ask my friend how it can be,
         But when the time arrives,
         Then Love is more lovely
         Than anything to me,
            And so I'm dumb.

For if the truth were known, Love cannot speak,
         But only thinks and does;
         Though surely out 'twill leak
         Without the help of Greek,
            Or any tongue.

A man may love the truth and practise it,
         Beauty he may admire,
         And goodness not omit,
         As much as may befit
            To reverence.

But only when these three together meet,
         As they always incline,
         And make one soul the seat,
         And favorite retreat,
            Of loveliness;

When under kindred shape, like loves and hates
         And a kindred nature,
         Proclaim us to be mates,
         Exposed to equal fates
            Eternally;

And each may other help, and service do,
         Drawing Love's bands more tight,
         Service he ne'er shall rue
         While one and one make two,
            And two are one;
In such case only doth man fully prove
         Fully as man can do,
         What power there is in Love
         His inmost soul to move
            Resistlessly.
               ______
Two sturdy oaks I mean, which side by side,
         Withstand the winter's storm,
         And spite of wind and tide,
         Grow up the meadow's pride,
            For both are strong
Above they barely touch, but undermined
         Down to their deepest source,
         Admiring you shall find
         Their roots are intertwined
            Insep'rably.


HDT