by Jacques Prevert

An orange on the table  

Your dress on the rug

And you in my bed

Sweet present of the present

Cool of night

Warmth of my life.

–transalted from the French by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

by Karen Garrison

I love being lost
in the sound that mud makes
when it is soft and wet and begs
your fingers to stay a little while longer
and please play some more in my earth
smell this beautiful terra firma consuming you
begging you to forsake the skillful architecture of
your hands
to make a more marvelous mess
and I love you saying look baby I have found
this branch of myself that I can use to dig
your sweet red clay to death and I say yes dig me baby
dig me as if planting love like crocuses
beneath the window of my hips.

My earliest, happiest memories are from summers spent at a lakeside cabin in central Wisconsin. My sister and I would waste away the days picking rocks and shells, drinking Tab from bright pink cans, and vying for the Coppertone towel we both loved. After lunch, we’d strategically align ourselves to face the sun, flipping over every half hour to make sure we were evenly bronzed.

We’d complain about the heat, but we’d stay outside on that pier until the sun went down and we were scared away by the bats skimming out across the water.

As a teenager, I had my first (and only) experience of topless sun-bathing. I picked an afternoon when no one else was home, I found a spot behind the garage where no one could see me, and I dared to bare it all. The whole adventure lasted probably twenty minutes – but I still remember how freeing it felt to be totally exposed to the sun’s gaze.

I still love that feeling of the sun heating my skin, making me blush. It’s amazing how something so far away touches me and changes me.

Perhaps that’s why I adore The Sun Lover by Julia Kasdorf:

The long afternoon after church
a girl lies on the lawn,
glazed thighs slightly parted,
fingers splayed like petals. At sixteen
she is a virgin. While her parents nap
in the quiet house, she knows
the sun is teaching her about love,
how it comes over your body
making every muscle go soft
in its pitiless gaze,

how it penetrates everything,
changing you into something dark
and radiant. She craves it,
knows it is everywhere like God’s love,
but difficult to find. She waits,
entirely still, trying to see her eyelids–
not lingering traces, but the lids themselves
luminous and red as the cheeks of the kid
who stuck a flashlight in his mouth at camp.
She squints so the tips of her lashes
flash like iridescent fish scales.

Every hour, she turns over but prefers
to face the sun. All her life
she’ll measure loves against this
gentle ravishing. She’ll spend afternoons
alone on crowded beaches, and at home
stand naked before mirrors, amazed
by the pale shape of her suit. She’ll touch
her cheekbones’ tingling pink, and nip
at her lover’s shoulders, as if
it were earth she were after.

by Thomas Moore

‘Twas a new feeling – something more
Than we had dared to own before,
Which then we hid not;
We saw it in each other’s eye,
And wished, in every half-breathed sigh,
To speak, but did not.

She felt my lips’ impassioned touch -
‘Twas the first time I dared so much,
And yet she chid not;
But whispered o’er my burning brow,
‘Oh, do you doubt I love you now?’
Sweet soul! I did not.

Warmly I felt her bosom thrill,
I pressed it closer, closer still,
Though gently bid not;
Till – oh! the world hath seldom heard
Of lovers, who so nearly erred,
And yet, who did not.

I love being lost
in the sound that mud makes
when it is soft and wet and begs
your fingers to stay a little while longer
and please play some more in my earth
smell this beautiful terra firma consuming you
begging you to forsake the skillful architecture of
your hands
to make a more marvelous mess
and I love you saying look baby I have found
this branch of myself that I can use to dig
your sweet red clay to death and I say yes dig me baby
dig me as if planting love like crocuses
beneath the window of my hips.

karen garrison

Soft and sweet, strong and salty
Cool cream and hot coffee
When we come together there’s a change
I know you’re good for me
You change me like the weather
You change me for the better
We’re good together
Read more…

I Can’t Sing

So instead
I have to wrap my arms
Around your head
And pull you to my heart
And squeeze
Just hard enough
To let you know
We could hurt each other

Copyright 2007, Linford Detweiler
Artist: Duy Huynh
+ + + + + + + + + + +

Two of my favorite artists are represented above.

Over the Rhine has a new recording out which you can listen to online. Everyone is raving about them, and well they should be. OTR has been my favorite band since I first began listening to them in college. Artwork from their “Patience” CD was the focal point of our wedding invitations in 1995. I have seen them in concert several times over the years and they always manage to move me to tears with their sensual and honest and damn-beautiful music.

I regret not being able to attend their Charlotte show this month (I’ll be at school in San Francisco). It’s even on our anniversary weekend – what could be more perfect than an OTR show to celebrate 12 years together? Karen and Linford have provided the soundtrack of our marriage!

Duy Huynh‘s work moves me in a similar way. Something about his paintings just touches me in a profound way. I can’t afford a painting (someday, hopefully…) but I did buy several of his prints (card size) which I am having nicely framed so that I can hang them throughout my house and be inspired by the quiet beauty of each one.

- Lord Byron

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Read more…

by Margaret Atwood

Marriage is not
a house or even a tent

it is before that, and colder:

the edge of the forest, the edge
of the desert
the unpainted stairs
at the back where we squat
outside, eating popcorn

the edge of the receding glacier

where painfully and with wonder
at having survived even
this far

we are learning to make fire

For Steve-

see the pyramids around the Nile
watch the sunrise from a tropic isle
just remember darling all the while
you belong to me

see the marketplace in old Angier
send me photographs and souvenirs
just remember when a dream appears
you belong to me

and I’ll be so alone without you
maybe you’ll be lonesome too

fly the ocean in a silver plane
see the jungle when it’s wet with rain
just remember till you’re home again
you belong to me

oh I’ll be so alone without you
maybe you’ll be lonesome too

fly the ocean in a silver plane
see the jungle when it’s wet with rain
just remember till you’re home again
you belong to me

^^^^^^^^^^
For the Lifehouse/Shrek version go HERE