Wind, Water, Fire, and Stone

It is the stone in her pocket,
the rough one, with its vein of quartz,
a hidden, forever fire. She can touch
that stone, and no one knows.

It is the beat of a bass drum
that calls her body to consider rhythm,
to remember the wash of waves
that carried all forward in the march
through twilight into night.

It is that sunny day in March
that stirs her desire for more,
yet she feels suspended
like a stemmed cherry
captured in a cube of ice.


Everything circles and dances
like tongues of fire on the hearth,
like a willow caught in the wind,
like the confusion of waves before a storm,
like that stone that blazes in her hand.

Published in "Through My Window: Poetry of a Psychotherapist," Pudding House Publications, 2007.



Five Minutes Between
Therapy Clients

Through my window I see
swans floating on a man-made
pond with a concrete fountain.
Look into an impressionist oil
over my desk. Lush peonies
and always the one perfect petal-- fallen
no insects, no rain, no rot,
nothing grating or grotesque.

In these minutes I see
the painting's imperfect perfection
for the first time:
after the woman who last week found
her husband naked with her sister-in-law,
and before the college professor
who doesn't know why he cries.

Published in "Through My window: Poetry of a Psychotherapist," Pudding House Publications, 2007.



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