How do I woo thee?

With a sigh of warm love trickling over your shoulders
my body rubs against the soft, musky fragrances of yesterday

imprinted in the chocolate Egyptian sheets
where legs and arms are safely cocooned
butterflied as lover's hearts in candy

to be presented as a gift
perfectly savored, tasted

regret dances not in our bed
past lovers leap not in our mind's eyes
as passion envelopes me sweetly, secretly

And you return to me ~ encouraged by heat
moistness and desire, ripe for the plucking















~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~

My entry into Judith's Artsy Essay Contest! Try it yourself, I keep trying and have yet to win...

Novembers Artsy Essay

My well loved friend Judi Heartsong host an Artsy Essay contest each month with themes and this month's theme goes well with the holiday of Thanksgiving:

Sharing the Gift of Thanks

If you could thank one person (someone you know or someone you have never met, living or dead) for one extraordinary thing that has mattered tremendously in your life, who would it be and what would you thank them for?

It would simply be impossible for me to not do an essay on this topic, impossible. Irresponsible. So I will do it against my better judgment and I will time the posting for the exact time that it shall make the deadline of the contest and posting that shan't interfere with tomorrow (November 30th)...and try to be creative enough to not break any boundaries either. Perhaps it won't be my best piece of writing but it will be my heart. Blog police be damned!


That said, here is my entry:


What does it mean to be thankful? To have a heart overflowing with gratitude that can not be contained with the flimsy walls of the soul? One must begin with a solid definition of thanks first:

thankful

One entry found.

thankful

Main Entry:

thank·ful

Pronunciation:

\ˈthaŋk-fəl\

Function:

adjective

Date:

before 12th century

1 : conscious of benefit received -for what we are about to receive make us truly thankful
2 : expressive of thanks -thankful service
3 : well pleased : glad was thankful that it didn't rain

— thank·ful·ness noun

Webster is good at breaking it down to the basic elements of the heart, to the starkness of it all.

For what we are about to receive makes us truly thankful.

We are well pleased.

We are expressive of thanks.

Man we are glad.


To be thankful then is to be happy in the core of one's very soul, to be filled up beyond filling.


If I could thank one person for something who would it be and why would I thank them?

Ah.

I am not only the glass the half full kind of woman but also a gee-aren't-ya-glad-they-didn't-get-out-the-Ritz-kinda-gal so when it comes to this November, and the dates that I normally mark in the fall, I can not begin to even fathom the swelling in my heart. The 25th of November marked ten years that my brain tumor has not reoccurred, that I have been granted life by my God. I celebrated by teaching Sunday School to first graders where I listened to a six year old girl tell me that God sings her to sleep at night, actually He sings her different songs each night so that she can get to know Him better. Honestly, I am the only one who remembered that the 25th was such a remarkable date and it was okay.

But I am not most thankful to that talented suregon, although he is a good man, there is another person to whom I am indebted. A woman.

Someone that I do not know and yet I know stories of and have seen pictures of, have probably heard the lilt of her voice though her children's laughter.

I have felt the graciousness of her unselfishness and will forever have the privilege of sharing something she loved more than herself. In October 2003 I almost died but instead of dying I became unable to have children of my own.

My husband and I know her story, we know bits and pieces of her pain and I am forever thankful that she is giving us pieces of her soul to raise for her today, officially.

Without this: an entry in the Artsy Essay

Quick, there is the sudden blare of the smoke detector and smoke fills my nose, burning my lungs and leaving a taste of melting wire in my mouth.

It is dark in the house.

And late.

And I was sleeping.

Bolting out of bed I quickly am reminded that indeed, I do have MS because my floor sways gently like a sail boat on the calm open seas; with enough pitch to let me know I do not yet have my land legs.

With the clarity granted only to lunatics I begin "the list of things to grab" as I hit the floor on my hands and knees; Holly's hand made giraffe stitched lovingly out of a delicate purple flower material, my wooden jewelry box with the broken hing that my mother gave me, the nine foot iron giraffe, the pirate's treasure chest and semi-precious jewels, my grandmother's hand written letters from Iran during the time of the Iranian hostage crisis, the envelope from the coroner's office still containing my father's Harley Davidson wallet from the night he was murdered, my 1860 bible from the Church in New Orleans that was destroyed by Katrina, my Bible I actually read and mark in, my wedding photos that I have not scanned into Photo bucket yet, my other photos and oh my mother's artwork that can still be save. Oh my. Her art work.

I have so much of it, crawl faster.

My writing. O.h.

And how shall I save the vastness of my imagination and the depths of my soul? Would I count this amongst my favorite of things? The smoke begins to cloud my mind, to slow my thoughts and my crawl.

Carefully, desperately, I lift my head trying to see further ahead into the room. If only there were more time to save it all. If only.

And then I hear them, my most prized possessions crying for me to wake up from my bad dream with:

"Mommy it's not dark out now, time to get up we are SO hungry."










The Artsy Essay is back! ~Judith