"Faire Ladye From The North"
Ask not who has suffered more nobly, or sweetly,
in thy absence.
Whose hearing (mine) longs for your voice that changes
mere matter
into stained glass before thy very eyes.
Whose sense of rhythm (hers) tickles, then shakes,
the movement of the spheres.
Whose voice (hers) commands four winds,
separately, then colliding all together.
Whose fragrance (hers) impales the heart of any
hummingbird.
Whose laugh (hers) belies the poetry in everything.
Whose observation (hers) of others makes science a
shallow folly.
Who speaks (she) to children as if addressing royalty,
or better still, teachers of a certain ancestry.
Ask not how others manage such deference
in thy presence,
for they are far more skilled than I.
September 2012
