Made My Bed

I make my bed every morning

            After I discipline my body with 2 miles of exercise

            And after my husband rises.

A  habit cultivated, I cannot leave

            For the day until my bed is made.

Exhausted, I return to my bed

            & pull off the 12 year old blankets

Then straighten the wrinkles out of the sheets

            & pull their patterns flat.

Pick up the musty lavender velour, spread

            & pull its corners ‘til arranged

Letting its heavy sides cover the full bed

            & pull its sides until

                        Almost reaching the ground

                        Almost completely covering my bed frame.

And then the bedspread falls, arranging corners

            & pull down the sides until

Lilacs fall off my be, their flat patterns float

            & pull down & over.

I then gather the dark curtains that make my headboard

            & pull them back, morning light growing in them,

& then the pillows. I gather them

            & pull & plump & fluff then stand them

Arranging them until my bed looks

like a magazine cover

that would catch someone’s eye

at a newsstand until they reach over

            & pull it off the shelf to examine;

A flat picture that hints of rest & comfort

            & pulls you out of reality.

A habit cultivated, I cannot leave

            For the day until my bed is made.

Ariel

Oct 6, 2005

Lilac Spray by CC Willow

Adrift

Adrift

I am wary of being tossed about

Tired of bars and parties

They leave me unsatisfied and adrift.

Yet I am also tired

Of the sleepless nights of watching the stars

And the cravings, Lover,

That act like scurvy, eating away at my belly.

So I have taken another

And though he offers a safe port for my passion,

Though he dams the tide of need,

Though he releases me to sleep -

He does not release me from needing you.

Being with him feels empty

Going through the motions

Having no real substance.

A false wind that does not sustain.

A ship with a false bottom

And I am still sinking.

I’m trying to watch the stars

But the October night is overcast

Leaving me navigating in the dark

For right answers

Which keep pointing to you.

That overwhelms and scares me

For my want of you is not good for you

And when you send me adrift

You are left feeling guilty

You insist you do not love me & am

Unable to be what I need

You insist I belong to another.

Unable to reconcile,

I am not a vessel you trust

But dammed, unable to refuse me.

Dammed,

I am both connected and held apart by you

By a sea composed of our past.

And without you, I am sinking,

Navigating in the dark

In a ship with a false bottom

Ariel

Sept 2005

Reflections on Water by CC Willow

Haunted

I haunted you with the look

Laden with boiling sensual desire.

Going between naked wine

            And the red river of tears.

Ariel

September 2005

Wine Bottle 1 by CC Willow

Some Scars Remain Unseen

Some scars remain unseen

            So it stays when I scarred you.

Sixteen years ago, my greatest shame

            And pain that I thought truncated

Still tears at your mind, leaving you

            Still battle-scarred and battle-wary.

Given the choice, that is the one moment

            I would change – my greatest shame

Hurting you. I suppose I didn’t want to

            Give up hope. I wanted

A new beginning, a chance to

            Make more informed choices,

To walk away from recovered wounds

            With our own reclaimed skin.

But I cannot see your scar –

            You hold me still at a distance.

Some scars remain unseen

             And I cannot heal them;

History refuses to close - the same wound

            Still causes you to reject me,

Removes me from you, leaving me

            Feeling like falling debris.

Some scars remain unseen …

            Why can we not rectify them?

Ariel

August 3, 2005

Ariel Red by CC Willow

Earth-Bound

My wings are clipped

            And I am earth-bound.

I gaze up at ancient trees,

            So immense and immoveable,

            Earth-bound,

And it comes to me in an instant –

My life is as transitory as a butterfly’s in their sight.

Their lives began before me

And will continue after.

Unlike my mobile being –

            Moving to and fro,

            Trying to make meaning;

A tree’s job if simply to stand there

And hold its ground,

Weave it with their roots

To give a living net

So the rain and wind

Do not wash it away.

I, a transitory creature with a span of years

Just a blink to those giants,

My feet touch the ground

But do not penetrate.

Any net I construct last only

            As long as I am physically there.

I am too often washed away

With desire, my roots fail to hold

You, slipping away like quicksilver;

Your presence a gossamer instant.

And I, a clipped butterfly shorn of my wings,

            Am earth-bound, unbound and undone.

Ariel

Aug, 5, 2005
written at Blowout Creek,
near Detroit, Oregon

Leaning Tree by CC Willow

Driving To Dallas

There is no pretending I don’t need you.

My passion driving

            Like an Audi at eighty-five miles.

I won’t pretend I’m not being consumed by need.

I again turn to him

            And he cared for me,

As I cared for his needs

            When he was broken,

And he took me in

            Knowing of my need.

There is a long history there;

            We are not lovers but friends who love.

I won’t need to pretend he is you.

No tears this time will be shed -

            We retreat to his bed.

Not lovers,

            But friends who love;

He will shut the world out

            As we fall into his bed,

So familiar as when it lay

            Beneath his parents’ bedroom,

And he raised his passion

            To meet my desperate need –

I had immediate need of you

            And he filled it.

There is no pretending.

And as hunger and hope emptied,

            He filled that too.

For this time, my dammed need

            Is allowed to set our rhythm

And he allows me, passion

            Releasing and releasing again.

Exhausted, we laid entwined

            In his arms and long legs.

There is no pretending they are yours.

            Not lovers, but friends who love.

But as he slept, still driven by you,

            I rose & purged myself of him;

Purged his sweat from my body,

            My body of his food,

My mouth of his taste,

            My core of his seed.

Purged it of everything that was not you

            And then, stripped again to my essence

I again returned to his bed;

            His arms habitually enfold me.

Not lovers, but friends who love.

There is no pretending they are yours.

He did not take offense,

            Even knowing as he did

The precautions I took – filling my womb

            Inhospitable to his seed.

We are not lovers.

In the morning

            He will rise above me again

Aware that, heartbroken, passion unmatched

            Will drive me again without reason.

On instinct, on impulse;

            It will not be safe.

The day must be met

            But not alone – My layers fall,

Peeled away and our rhythm again

            Is paced by my incessant need.

He will console my desire again

            And then feed me as you will not,

Take me back into his life for that brief time

            Then let me drive away.

We are not lovers now

            But friends who love.

There is no pretending he is you.

We are not lovers. Now.

Ariel

Aug 4, 2005

This is both a Tiger & a Stranger poem.

State Street, Salem, Oregon -photo form city archives,
color-editting by CC Willow

Tide

Tide

Every current pushes me

Towards your battered door

But often I successfully scurry back out

With the tide

Before you know I’m there.

Ariel

Aug 4, 2005

Viw From The Seagull by CC Willow

Much More

There is much more to me

            Than wanting you

            Than being an unrequited lover.

I am a poet

            A married Emily Dickenson

            With no need for white.

An artist who is finding

            Her own vision

            Who can learn from others but cannot follow

Ariel

Aug 4, 2005

Lower Blowout Creek by CC Willow

Don't Tell - a senryu

Don’t Tell

To you I admit

I no longer want any

Surrogate lovers.

Ariel

We Both Know - Previously published on The UK Poetry Library

>We Both Know



It is the storm's forgetting in silence I fear.

We both know how the rain can

hit concrete and turn to ice

We both know how gathering clouds and disbursing clouds

will change a person's visage; pale thin light

does something to a person's skin, to their eyes.
We know how wind focused through the canyon of buildings

causes people to hunker in on themselves,

bunker arms tight around their layers

to protect, not allow frigid air to get a fingers grip.

We know a winter can last a long time;

the quieted pause giving us a chance to step outside

and survey what damage was wrought.



But we also know how a stripped tree glows

when the sunlight finally wins.

Even in a city of blacktop, storied buildings and commercial lights,

with thin pale light refracted by the crystalline layers and magnified,

a naked tree requires sunglasses for viewing,

its shape a single typed character against a stark white page,

a shock in the middle of blankness, an awakening,

It's limbs remembering to reach out, remembering its structure

Even in the city, a stripped tree is a thing to admire.





Ariel

Dec 30 2012