Lemniscate

A poet has my heart.

He keeps it between the pages of a leather-bound book

pressed petal-like under paper.
Word-etched pages of his
clasp me in translucence
like breath between praying palms.

He gave me his heart too, this spring.
And I keep it in the paint box

as my twenty seventh colour,

an ink-blood dearness
that curtains over white page:
Aurora Borealis to my snow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

IN THE TURNING of this year from green to red, I have found a treasure. A treasure long dreamed of, that was hidden in the stories I imagined as a child, and in the woods of my young pondering, and in the margins just beyond the edges of my paintings.
Here in the umber days of autumn, I sit smiling, astounded and thankful at this wonderful heart harvest. How life's wheel turns!
Nature's red congregation joins with my heart in gleeing:

Haw berries red,

Rosehips red,

Beech leaves red,

Blackberries red,

Fly Agarics red as a fairytale,

And roses from a bride's bouquet... passed to me with a wink ;)

Yes! Love has come to my hearth and heart, and his dear name is Tom :)
He is indeed a poet! Let me show you some of his beautiful words. Here on this leaf-browning equinox, I'll balance the scales of the year with poetry and prose of his that speak so eloquently of Spring:

I cannot say in words how deeply his wordsmithing and his arrival have affected me. I am stunned and grinning and Happy Beyond Happy! And we look forward with delight to word and image weaving to add to the already bubbling Baba Yaga's cauldron of forest-sleeping, moor-trekking, shooting star-gazing, fireside-storytelling, music-making, home-building. With us in our little nest lives Macha the hound with a piece of the Other World in her left eye, who has rather won my heart too.



My September birthday this year was spent walking across the moors with my love to two rings of stones, edged by wild horses and windblown tussocks. These are the Grey Wethers, a rare double stone circle side by side. There we drank chai from a thermos and embraced the winds of autumn arriving across the moor.

And as the green of spring and the red of love mix in the paint tray of this wonderful landscape of my days, I wonder about those two circles: Are they magician's rings? Are they my new friend the number 8? Are they ∞ - the lemniscate or infinity symbol, for balance of forces?

I stand on this autumnal hill of my 31 years and breathe in deep the air of life and Unfolding Story in Dartmoor's mists and I breathe out a shout full to brimming with joy, and thanks, and wonder rekindled, and love.

And, smiling, I imagine a bird in my mind's eye, soaring high above this life-hill of mine, writing loops in the sky like this: ∞