Sunday Memories Of A Guest Artist: To Love To Be Loved

  Paula and Mr. Ishmael, a.k.a, the baby boy cat

Photo by Shelley Glick

Untitled 

[I know now the beloved]

by  Gregory Orr

I know now the beloved

Has no fixed abode,

That each body

She inhabits

Is only a temporary

Home.

That she

Casts off forms

As eagerly

As lovers shed clothes.

I accept that he's

Just passing through

That flower

Or that stone.

And yet, it makes

Me dizzy-

The way he hides

In the flow of it,

The way she shifts

In fluid motions,

Becoming other things.

I want to stop him-

If only briefly.

I want to lure her

To the surface

And catch her

In this net of words.

**

Paula, an old, dear friend is the twinkle in a witty observance and the soft of a breeze.  She has repeatedly dazzled and inspired me with emails filled with poems and photos from her life that sing the secret heart of soul, cat or others.