ashley's song

Sweet child of seven seas

She struggles toward the sunshine

Meanwhile fearful of the dark



So Much, so much

Of your life

Shadowed in gray clouds

Anxious to laugh

Anxious to love

But fearful of the tears

That are inevitable to all



Hesitant to acknowledge happiness

For fear that it,

Like the morning mists

Will dissipate

To be replaced by heavy clouds of sadness



You heard the mermaids singing

Each to each

“I do not think they will sing to me,”

You whispered

Wary of the sadness

That awaits you

Fearful of the joy

That might be fleeting



But, Listen…

They do sing for you

Time after time they call to you

A beacon, a lighthouse

Guiding you through choppy seas

Guiding you to sunlit shores and cloudless skies



I have heard the mermaids singing

Their song was meant for you

The rhythm of the waves

Beats a chorus to your name

The very universe

Sings out its song to you

A harmony of the spheres

An intergalactic tone

A Joyous song of being

Echoes in your beating heart

In the very pulse of blood in your veins



You have heard the mermaids singing

Each to each

And to you.

For you are their song

You have only to sing along

Relativity

Relativity



How time has slowed

The ticking of the clock

Echoes

The drip of the facet

Loudly

Pounds, water on metal

As hammer to anvil



Even the beat of my heart

Ka-thumping slowly now

Befogged

As in mental molasses

Mired

Time stretches to a breaking point

In this Sargasso sea.



Relativity?

This is the proof

kiss from a shortstop

It was truly the only time I desired a kiss from a shortstop.

Muscles tensed in anticipation,

Ponytail fluttering, windsock-like,

gauging direction and speed,

as she waited, crouching, open armed,

Welcoming the speeding white orb.

Swallowed up in her cat like grasp,

For a split second, suspended in my memory, a Greek statue,

Brown and glistening,

Balanced on one foot,

Turned and launched,

A rocket blur of arm.



The first baseman,

Uncoiling as a human slinky,

toward the throw,

Ball disappearing in a white puff of dust.



My shortstop, my Grecian work of art, turns,

thumb up in my direction,

Goddess of the diamond,

“Told you I could” smirk in her smile.