In love that I can see

"...I inhale the scent of the stranger, which rises from his shirt. I love this smell. 'I love Fernando,' I tell myself and the fire. I am bewildered by this fresh new fact of my life, more from the swiftness of its coming than by its truth. I search for some sense of folie a deux. I find none. Rather than being love-blinded, it is in love that I can see, really see.
Never was there even a flickering sense of my having been beckoned up onto a white horse by a curly-haired swain, by the man-who-would-be-king, my one-and-only-meant-to-be-mine. I never felt the earth crack open. Never. What I felt, what I feel, is quiet. Except for those first hours together in Venice, there has been no confusion, no confounding, none of the measuring and considering one might think to be natural for a woman up to her knees in middle age who thinks to jump the moat. Now all the doors are open, and there is warm yellow light behind them. This does not feel like a new perspective but the first and only perspective that has ever belonged only to me, the first perspective that has been neither compromised or redrawn. Fernando is a first choice. I never had to talk myself into loving him, to balance out his merits and defects on a yellow pad. Nor did I have to, once again, remind myself that I wasn't getting any younger, that I should be grateful for the attentions of yet another 'very nice man'."

by Marlena de Blasi in "A Thousand Days in Venice"

Water lilies

Water lilies © Jennifer Phillips

If only

If only we had met,

When we were children.

We would have tossed a ball,

Sung nursery rhymes,

Played games of hide and seek.

We would have skipped along the waves,

And built castles in the sand.

If only we had met,

When we were teenagers.

We would have shared an ice cream after school,

Listened to music and danced the night away.

Talked of our goals for years to come,

Walked hand in hand along the beach,

Experienced the innocence of our first kiss.

If only we had met,

When we were adults, all grown up.

Before the dreams of youth were spent,

The disappointments and the heartache.

We would have shared a sunset,

And watched the stars fill up the sky.

Our lips would have been joined in tender kiss,

Arms held tight in passionate embrace.

If only we had met,

In another time and place.

We would have shared a love so deep,

All other loves would pale in their significance.

Our hearts would share one beat,

Two bodies would blend into one,

The spirit and the soul would be united.

If only ....

By Yolanda Isabel Regueira Marin

Square peg, round hole

My life has been 

square peg, 

round hole.

Accommodating others, 

sucking it up.

An empty shell

cannot give.

And after all is done,

I need to come home,

to your heart.

© Jennifer Phillips (All rights reserved)

© http://www.iblogmarketing.com/

Hypnos

I am older now, but none the wiser.

I was half asleep, head down,

walking a path of bored contentment.

You slid right back under my skin,

and precious fool that I am,

I let you straight back in.

There is no balm, to soothe soul-ache.

Exquisite tung-kuai tendrils 

curl through our days, and invade our nights.

We tried to fight it, we could not.

Fuck. We swim in Kokytos

underwater, with our demons.

I reasoned 'till I'm blue in the face.

Now I'm awake I still can't see.

Logic in this shadow-play has no place.

Being young and shy - undefined - I made a safe choice...

Now my highs are lower, and my lows not so.

I walk endlessly Ennui's dry and distant plateau.

Would you not take the leap,

if you had a second chance at truest romance,

even though the gap's a chasm, it's grown so deep?

We have everything against us,

yet our conviction fuels us...

My heart holds encased a great regret.

Tried to sink in Lethe, 

but I floated up, into life.

So I cannot forget, put what's past aside.

So then, we'll embark on a long wait of good not great,

though the fit's 'square peg, round hole' - 

be the best that we can be, try our best to make it.

Enduring the heat that sears, 

our souls fly nightly, like owls

on the wings of our words still, all these years.

Until eventually, we'll lay this Thing to rest, 

finally lie face to face, breath to breath, 

chest to breast. Definitely not a race.

We dare to shake the tree of life - twice.

Its leaves fly a long distance, for a long time... 

tempted by its nameless fruit, let's be soul-drunk blind.

Open our eyes to our truth - take the leap, fulfil our destiny.

Do we deserve this, or is this just fantasy, 

caught in a landslide - our escape from reality?

© Jennifer Phillips (All rights reserved)

Hypnos © The Trustees of the British Museum

Seascape

Both are one, god knows -

the flower's secret heart

and heart's secret flower.

your forget me not eyes turn

a world - as moontides

our days along windswept shores

and dark places

to the quiet bay, and love

seagrass, seaflower, sand dune

whispering your eye to me

every now and again

moonwashed liquid your voice

the whole of your eye is my heart

in your hand, on distant shore.

by Joy Hester

Seashore at Flinders, VIC © Jennifer Phillips

Blossoms in Spring

Sun blossoms © Jennifer Phillips

Basketball cake

Basketball cake to celebrate my daughter's basketball team's Season win

Love

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. 

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and to give thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ectasy;

To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips. 

by Kahil Gibran