Heart's Way

by Michele Fry, © 1966

(Teen girl's angst on the loss of a first serious crush, gracious me, seems it was almost as bad as an actual breakup!!)

Oh my heart, please hear me!

Won’t you listen to my plea?

         Miami shores are gone now

         and the pounding of the sea

                           is far behind you.

                  That stretch of sand.

                           His warm, soft hands

                                             Please understand.

 

You’ll burst if you relive

each little word that passed between us

         from the first “How do you do.”

         until the last resounding echo

                           of a sigh.

                  No, please don’t cry again.

                                    Don’t cry.

                           Just say goodbye.

 

The beauty of his smile, his glance,

the way he held his glass.

         The moments shared between us

         that seem to last and last –

                           they’re in the past.

                  Don’t feel outcast.

                                    They never last.

                                             Let go your grasp.

 

You’ll be our life’s destruction

if you dwell upon the past.

         My heartbeat!  Can’t I reach you?

         You are throbbing even faster

                           than before.

                  I underscore –

                                    give up those distant shores!

 

There’ll be another chance,

Another love will come our way.

         Til then we have to live,

         to make a bridge,

                      to find a way.

                           We must portray

                                    some solidarity.

 

A half a smile to mask our pain

is better than a frown.

         We owe it to our friends

         to be heroic, not a clown.

                           But I can’t muster half of that

                  without support from you.

                                    We are a team.

                                             We share one theme.

                                                      Our self-esteem’s at stake!

 

My way is the only way . . . . . Ah,

won’t you hear me through?

         I fight with all that’s in me

         but as usual you defeat me

                           by a mile.

                  I’m in exile.

                                    Please reconcile.

                           Okay, we’ll rest her in the dark again awhile

 

Condemned by fate, I’m bound with you

to drown in lost love’s pain

         for reasoning alone is not enough.

         It can’t sustain

                            the will to live,

                   the will to give.

                                 The heart’s the source

                                               of all our incentive.

Casual Acquaintenance

By Michele Fry © 1992

A casual affair, we’re warned,

never lasts for long,

but sometimes I’m drawn into things,

right or wrong, for . . . . .

 

I cannot help my finger reaching

out to touch your lip,

to trace across your cheek,

to stroke your hair.

 

My eyes, drawn into yours,

fall heavy with desire,

and yours, drawn into mine,

are candles’ fire.

 

At first I follow protocol.

You’re free to go or stay.

Averted eyes and small talk

give room to break away.

 

But soon I feel you bowing to

the aura of my touch.

Our hands entwine.  Your lips brush mine.

Such tenderness!  Too much!

 

Surroundings fade

to a distant wavy sea.

There’s nothing can deny our

strange familiarity.

 

The nearness of your shoulder

makes a tightness in my chest.

Your breathing, too, grows shallow

as you slightly trace my breast.

 

As calm, as sure as ever

anything can ever be,

I know that I want you

and you want me.

 

Your face, your form

accept all that I do.

The world is re-defined –

There’s me . . . . . and you.

 

Time stands still.  There’s just

our rhythm and our flow.

Our whole life is this moment –

there is no tomorrow.

 

My name?  What’s yours?  That’s nice to know.

I really like your name.

The truth is, though, that just now

any name would seem the same.

 

For a rushing heat is in my ear.

The lights are dim.  I can barely see.

My throat is tight.  So hush.  Just stay,

and fill yourself with me.

 

Each move I make, you mirror.

We’re of a single mind.

You’re never far ahead of me

or never far behind.

 

How can this be?  We’ve no experience

of each other’s love . . . . .

We are but grist for a higher cause –

our guidance from Above.

 

We are aware of just one thing:

a swirling, blinding trust.

At last, we are the Universe!

The Universe is us!

 

Such bonding is the reach of

ancient hands ‘cross vaulted skies,

A moment caught in memory

before dark clouds arise.

 

I play such love scenes now and then.

I’ve lived them once or twice.

Imagination amplifies

experiences so nice.

 

Whoever says a casual affair

never lasts, is wrong.

For let me tell you, from this chair,

such memories linger long.

Ode To Divorce

or (Please God, Help Me Keep This In Mind)
© 1993

Being with you
was like living at the bottom
of a deep, deep hole . . . . .
that I didn't even know I was in.
Now that I'm free and I see where I was,
I marvel that I had wanted so badly to stay there with you —
such misery is sin!

Now, when I come in and holler "I'm home!",
I no longer brace for your ho-humm indifference to chill me.
My pets dance around me. My projects surround me.
They thrill me! They need me! They feed me!
I'm feeling so free!

No longer am I in confusion nor pain
when you douse out my laughter,
or frown on discussions or jokes that I tell.
No longer down-trodden that you, my own partner,
devalued my love, and my work, and my life.
GO TO HELL!

No longer entrapped by your limited concepts,
I live my life just as I please —
for me, a gazelle in the wind.
I drive down the highway for miles, then realize
I'm no longer trying to please you, to fix you, to patch things.
There's nothing to mend!

I spend all my time now enjoying existence
and reveling in mine. I'm alive!
Can't figure out what I had clung to.
I sleep now less fitfully. I greet life more cheerfully . . . . .
for now I don't care if you kiss me, or miss me, or not.
HA!

Amazing! I've new friends who like what you hated about me.
Our psyches weren't matched! I'm feeling more loved . . . . .
So thinking it through, though I sobbed when you left,
it's worked out quite nicely for me —
my support reaches down from Above.

It frightens me, though,
how the Song of the Sirens confuses.
Romance sucks us in. One kiss and we're blinded.
But . . . . . the loneliness I had endured as your spouse
was by far, worse than being alone is.
(Please, God, help me keep this in mind!)

Written 3 months after my divorce. Every word of this one is drawn from personal experience.

How Like The Plants We Are

How Like The Plants We Are

Or (Lines Composed at Jackson Square, New Orleans)

(My attempt to keep a metaphor going for as long as possible.)

 

by Michele T. Fry Ó April, 1992

 

I cannot help but notice, as I sit here in the breeze
Along the river banks at Jackson Square in New Orleans,
O'erflowed with flowers, product of some visionary's dream,
How amazingly alike the plants and tourists are beneath.

Both put much energy into making of themselves such vivid flowers.
Asymmetry and natural curves make many a fine design
But onto these we sprig contrived devices of our own.

We hybridize, to colorize and lengthen lines,
To captivate with sweeter scents and subtler charms.

Adorned with these, we throng the avenues,

Line the bars, decorate sidewalk café’s, populate the beaches,
Fill the dance pavilions, ski resorts and malls throughout the world
As if by some unspoken signal we all know
To sow ourselves in public places.

With every size and shape and textured hue of specie turning out,
En masse, we make Parisian garden-like displays

(as Renoir caught in paintings, and Monet)
for all the passersby to see and smell and marvel at.
We energize a view, as flowers do!

We share other similarly deep-implanted impulses, too!

For whether bold or shy, bedecked in gaiety or drab,
Preferring sun or partial shade,
Outside in open air, or tucked away on some small patio,
According to our natures, in our seasons,
We all bloom and preen and bask in ways
that strive to make a statement for our kind.

We flutter in a gentle breeze
Or revel in a drizzling rain, or limp along in summer’s heat.
We open wide to show the world our centers
Or close up tight, as some mysterious guidance bids us do.
The undertow’s the same for us as for the flowers.
We strive to make connections!  Find a mate!  Pollinate!

Then happenly, without knowing why or how or when (it siddles up so fast)—

Lifeforce finds it’s way down that oh so subtle phallopian tube
And hits its mark dead on!  Fertilization!  Boom!
Rose hips swell wide, as hearts in love do.

None can stop the wheel’s spin now.

Everything goes ‘round and ‘round. 
Bellies bulge. 
Meanings change.
Wisdom dawns.
Vivid petals fade, wilt, drop brown to the ground.
Outer beauty spent,
Our cosmic purpose is just now begun.

Without a further conscious thought we’re drawn to selfless nurturing

And harboring little seeds within the bosom of parental love,
Blinded now to all but bearing firm and healthy fruit,
Green foliage, we discover, is noble, quiet, cool –
Beneath which many a wilted flower meets its end
And finds it’s rest-bed soothing, and satisfying too.

We look around and notice now—the countryside is green,

And lush and more becoming than we heretofore had seen.
We spread our roots to gather food and anchor down.

Holding soil and seedlings close our only aim,
Some wise and unseen hand now works its Will
To serve a purpose greater than our own.
We are become the Caretakers Of Earth.
For quite a while, we freshen up the air,
And reinforce the world with jungle shade.

And so the cycle goes.  For there comes at length a time

When we begin to feel the strain of parenting, to feel the urge
To heave forth from our bosom all our seeds,
To let them flutter out upon the breeze,
Away from us, to give us room, to let us breathe.
They’ve grown too cumbersome to hold.
We’re feeling old.  Somehow repulsed.
We must be free to live what life is left to us, and so,
Regardless of their fate, we let them go.

Or if, by some misguided gene

We try and hold our offspring close beyond their time—
Raw nature has an over-riding plan more far-reaching than ours.
For it has plugged into each youth an impulse stronger than our own—
Each ripened seedling wants to scatter from its mother plant
And make it on its own.

So strong this pull that with hooks or fins, or colors bright

It beckons unto bird or bear to eat it whole,
Or tries to sink its burrs into the fur of any passers-by
To be dropped off only God knows where.
Or maybe it attempts to catch a breeze
And spiral willy-nilly ‘cross the green—
(a seed will use whatever device it can to tear itself from home)—
to try and root itself elsewhere
and grow a flower of its own.

We know not how, or even whether they will live.

We watch incredulously on as youngsters preen,
And parade their stupid vanity for all the world to see.
With little thought for us or future cares,
They throng in public places (as we did),
And display gorgeous flowers!
They can’t explain.  They know not why. 
Impulse is their only guide.
But we've grown wise.  We see beyond pretentious, youthful lies.
We know exactly why. It’s to connect!  Attract a mate!

And so our seedlings scatter o’re the world,
and mix in vats of pollen,

‘Til they die untimely deaths.
Or if they count among survivors
They will pollinate themselves and swell around their middles,
And drop their flowers off,
And finally join their elders in the background green.

It’s then they offer up a kind of reverence for their parents—
They’ve followed in our footsteps.  They understand us now.
And while they’re praising us by turning green,
We may begin to primp again, and preen—
To heed some inner call, some deep-driv’n need
To have another go at youth ourselves.  To stage another show.

Are we annuals or perennials?

Can we repeat that floral scene?
Is our path a chosen one, or in our genes?

Who can say what moves a being,

But in that jocund company at Jackson Square
Came crystal clear to me that stripped of all our
Conversation, education, legislation
Theorizing, visualizing, prostelitizing,
Organizing, agonizing, and all the other Human things we do—
When taken just by primitive and underlying themes, on par,
How essentially like the plants we humans are!