[Love Letter to Myself/Soul Wife]

24 January 2011

I want to write

a letter

to you,

Self--

can’t think of who else

I love

so dearly,

who else

I’m so out of practice

saying that to.

I want

to take you out

someplace nice, give you

roses,

like a first boyfriend, know

this folded letter

warm on pink paper

will stay with you forever,

your first profession

of love.

I want

to buy you a ring.

One that sparkles

with true intent.

You’ll wear a

white dress & I’ll

love you like I

never have--

come home early

to kiss you

hold you, hold you

to feel the gravity between us.

So long

I have been absent--

busy busy

with unImportant Things,

working late at the office

grading papers

grinding myself away--

forgetting

that the love of my Dearest

measures my worth;

that success is not

what I believed it to be &

staying home,

turning in--

this is where

wealth is found:

with you

tending to this inner garden,

giving you glory

in our own house--

You,

my faithful little SoulWife,

packing my lunches

all these years,

waiting, like a mother;

At last

I will come Home.

-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux

[Ganesh]

23 January, 2011

I like Ganesh,

Remover of Obstacles--

I love him, even--

the first male diety

I have truly loved

because

he’s an elephant--

He’s not

my absent

temperamental Dad,

or any helpful surrogate--

no,

he is Ganesh,

big & thick & strong,

slow-breathing

calm, steady but

fierce!

Elephants

can move trees,

haul caravans,

trample forests,

but

they eat grass,

nuzzle their young

spray fountains of water from

their trunks.

Ganesh,

you have freed me

from my own

limited God, saying

we do not speak

with the same words but

still I understand you,

still you love me.

It is easier to trust

an elephant

with my problems, easier

to ask & ask

& not feel guilty or

ashamed.

And Ganesh just works away,

tearing up the choking vines there,

digging new trenches for clean water here,

never tiring,

never sighing with

unvoiced complaint.

I am not lounging in the shade--

no,

I am loving him,

watching,

as a child, & when

he pauses to look up & out

at the horizon

I pat his trunk,

run my hands over

his smooth, hard tusks,

feel the roughness of his legs,

touch, gently, his feet.

Then he curls up his trunk

& I lie back,

held in a swing

my hair hanging down

brushing the grass

looking up

at the blue sky as

more & more light

comes through.

-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux

[Fox Tracks]

19 January, 2011

A walk alone

in the company of

fox tracks

snaking

this way & that,

hugging

the shore.

My snowshoes

like clydesdales

plowed the snow

fishtail crosshatch

in my wake.

I walked into

the wilderness, into

the descending dark

far enough

to think of wolves

& feel afraid.

But, homeward bound,

heart attempting to hammer

I was stopped

overjoyed

at this:

melon-gold moon

blazing behind black pines,

clouds turned

periwinkle &

honey.

Into the night,

into the night

we went,

the fox tracks

& I.

-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux