pearls fall
 

don't speak to me of women poets
dead by their own hand
i do not want to know their landscape
i've walked the edge myself
teetering between words and action
singing dirges to myself

it is nothing we should praise

i will look from their windows
but i will not read the words

she stuck her head in the oven
one cold english day
too much hansel and gretel
for my tastes

plath for young mothers
simply isn't healthy

speak oracle
speak from life's desire
not of death or anguish
speak to us of love
of passion
of dionysius and baccus

or a broken strand of pearls
that slip to the gallery floor
a still life
beckoning the viewer in
a sip of life's passion
and perception
from a painted cup
or printed word

i view the rape and falling pearls
a thousand times
but not one more time
will i read of too red roses
i watch old women alone with their memories
more content than the young
with their dog eared plath
and men on their arms

riddle and puzzle
questions of the ages
the soul of a young girl
the eyes of an old woman
all that is and was not
distant dreams now forgotten
locked in a girl's heart
inside a woman's soul

she stands in the gallery
facing her own canvas
revisiting images in these stolen minutes
memories
watching the pearls fall
with him at her side

she views the paintings over and over
again walking the galleries alone
but do not ask her to read the words
of poets dead
by their own hands
finding no reason for life or love
in a pen empty hand

reality is created
with or without them
but it is better without them
once read is enough
keep such volumes high on the shelf
far above the still life
 

june/july 2001
nancy faye hill

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