Marie

You, dear girl,
were sent to France.
To be a queen, they said.
you learned -
after Austria -
how to endure.

You, dear girl,
were sent to marry.
Your first deflowering
before you evem met him.
they removed your possessions,
your friends and your soul.
replacing them with rich fabrics
and a head like a doll's.

You, dear girl,
were duped.
Your dignity was next in line.
Plucked but not so much as
annihilated in utter indifference.
But ever resilient as the returning sun,
You faced your fortune
Gleaming and undaunted.

You, dear woman-child,
turned your venom
into a sweet poisoned spell,
out onto the landscape
in a selfish rain of opulence -
a thunderous downpour
of cake.

Field of Dreams

Oh field of flowers where I've roamed so long
sweetly smelling your births and decays
suffering the stings for the sun
your calla lillies and your dahlias
attracting creatures to feed upon you
as you grow ever taller and fuller

sweet field of poppies;
the black eyed Susans watch over you in envy
while the Irish bells ring their delicate chimes in the wind

I have bathed in your cacophony of color year in and year out; grateful as a hummingbird in Spring.
But this year as I wander
I long for the ocean, for far off sands and mountain tops
The sun seems hotter on my shoulders,
the insects seem more insistent on biting
and my feet do not take me all the way to where the shady Hostas grow

I fear, sweet meadow of my dreams,
soon you shall become a vision for my dreams but
my dream of dreams no more.