The Awakening

Woman of substance, sophistication, world-weariness

The woman who knew it all

The multi-tasker, the doer of all things that need to be done

The lover of lists, the lover of checkboxes and checkmarks

The keeper of neat piles in neat stacks in neat boxes

The woman who knew how to manage it all

Who took things in her stride

Not a hair out of place

Then there came a day

Just a day like any other, one of many black figures on the calendar

A little special ‘cos she would go to the beach

A childhood sanctuary, favourite first place on one of her lists

She stood there on the paved walkway by the beach

Watching the boats in the blue yonder

Bobbing like puppets doing a dance

Directed by an invisible hand

A breeze tickled her ear

Wisps of hair came undone from her careful topknot

The breeze gathered strength

Something stirred deep within

She gazed at the sea

Was it calling to her?

The breeze was getting uncomfortable now

And yet in a way she was strangely cosy

Off came her slippers

Tossed aside in an uncharacteristic move

Locks of hair slipping out

She stepped out onto the still-warm sand

Watching the sun begin its descent towards

Its routine yet bewitching dip in the deep

Hesitant steps soon broke into a run

The wind embracing her lifting her hair as she finally let it loose

Now like a benign Medusa she stood

At the foamy edge of the shy waters lapping the shore

The wetness tickling her feet

She saw the high tide build up

And she walked in letting the wave wash over her

She fell back onto the shore drenched

Rivulets of salt running off her

Marking her with sand and bleached remains of seashells

The breeze enveloped her now

A gutsy wind unafraid of her steady gaze

Goosepimples bedraggled hair wet lips

The taste of sand in her mouth

Dirty she was and yet strangely cleansed

A freedom to be herself or even to just be

Delicious in its newness and as comfortable as an old worn blanket

She let herself go

The waves washed over her again and again

The breeze made unruly love to her

Her checkboxes lay unmarked

This woman who suddenly did not know it all

Did not have all the answers

But who had awoken from a long sleep

To soul-quenching, soul-stirring Life

The staid figures on her calendar laughed as they danced

The Spirit of Midnight

Lines of thought
Jumble themselves up in my head
Like woolly yarns of pastel,
Knotty, and tangled, crossing each other
Over and over
Till one knows not beginning nor end.

They slip between my fingers
Like glossy globus pearls
Pitting themselves on the floor,
Scattering everywhere, crushed underfoot.
On all fours, I scramble to gather them in,
My fingers slick with a sweat that seems
Precipitous with the end of reason.

Sleep, the slayer of mundane demons,
Lies forgotten on the crumpled bedspread
Moist with the drool of my meaningless dreams,
Where I still wander in the hope of finding an answer.

I know not what I write
But write I must.
There is a spirit in me that scorches,
Curls tendrils of my hair into feisty disobedience
And demands my obeisance

There's no letting go
Even when the soft threads tighten around me,
Biting into my body to leave dents
And the ravaged pearls take their revenge
In bright spots of crimson red that smudge my fingerprints.

I write, a farewell song,
An elegy, an ode, a hymn,
In desperation to be remembered
Or as a channel for the Unnamed that knows not the limits of Time and Space...
I know not which, but I write.