For Connie
I walk the beach
in our winter sun,
gathering stones and shells.
The heavy lace-up boots
I bought in Lamesa, Texas,
leave distinctive tracks.
***
We stood on a small rise
at the edge of Indian land.
‘This is my ocean,’ she said.
I gazed at acres of prairie,
waves of rolling scrub,
an endless, hypnotic horizon.
Heat lay like a cape
on my shoulders.
The wide, flat roadway
shifted and bled.
An older landscape rose
through structures
of present time.
I knew the curve of its earth,
I knew the shape of its light.
***
I walk the winter beach
tracking my footprints back
to find the place I entered,
a pathway through the scrub.
A man
stands in the shallows
fishing
the outgoing tide.
The breeze freshens.
Submitted for dVerse Entwin(n)ed Poetics June 2013
I met Connie in Lamesa, Texas, in April 2006 when I was a guest in her home, a featured reader at the annual Forrest Fest arts festival (behind which she is the driving force) and we also celebrated Beltane together. Put in touch by a mutual friend, we recognised each other at once as soul twins, and still keep in touch.
And here is her twin poem for me! —
Without Time
for Rosemary
I gather
tears in my eyes
Remembering
heat waves rising
On the
distant prairie edge as together
We survey
the blue and ridged rim of sandstone cliffs
Bearing the
scarred bones of Apache warriors
We miss the
lone buffalo that roams
There, the
golden eagle I hoped would
Re-appear
for my visitor from down under,
The cliche
road juggles us back through shinery
Past red
and black Indian blankets, yellow sunflowers
A budding
Ycca tall and slender sprouting from the earth
To
un-posted property from the
Trespass we
have entered, a place
Where time
stands still and the moment becomes
Buried
treasure in the badlands.
My
Australian friend blends into the
Landscape,
a desert Rose . .
Soon we
will return to our respective realities
We are
distant, separate in our bodies
Hemispheres
attempt to separate our souls,
Yet and
still, the spirit transcends the borders
Her ocean waves bump against my prairie sand dunes
We
are one under the moon
Connie
Williams
