Creature Speak

Don’t barrel in with your desire, darling,
if I have not agreed to your courtship.
Don’t presume I am your feast when
I have not given myself over.
There are gifts in store for the worthy,
when patience reveals him.

A man’s heart is a wood stove,
stoke the embers for a new fire.
Blue oak and pine know their bidding;
Sacrifices made on the altar of
your blazing consumption.
The dependability of machination,
its function over form. Beauty
in the formula. Glory in stature.

But a woman dances. She, opening
always, is the receptor: barometer,
like the frogs and the bees. She,
listening as the wind speaks, and water
sings of all it remembers, is tuned.
The fluidity of soft things becomes her.
The keeper of intrinsic knowing, she
needs the guardianship of discernment,
the protection of proof, and time.

Most assuredly, Life
will have her way with all of us,
and love peels off our layers, willing,
or not. Oh, to fight the good fight
for a shared dream.

When form and formless
come together, this is balance.
Balance within brings balance among,
for an answer to wholeness is whole.
I am no empty decanter, desperate
for any willing liquid to fill me. I
am not starving for indiscriminate food.
My tongue, with informed satiety;
tastes the salubrious, rebukes the rancid.

You, man, are all fire; That light,
so captivating in the cold. Your size:
all arms and heaving chest, and sturdy
shoulders for my smallness.
But be not fooled to think my fire
depends on yours. My zeal
is quieted; My fierceness, contained.
But you know your fingers
are soon to be cinders if you place them
on the coals, still with their deliverance,
an ignited furnace. Earn it!

Think not this be only fear,
for caution serves the delicate things.
Spiders hide in wood piles, and winged
creatures fly complex patterns
to confuse the hungry.
Show me, will you, that you are more
than the manifestation of your appetite!

Rest in confidence, if you have it.
Your valiance will be rendered
true through the hologram,
in the unfolding quilts; Authenticated
material, being woven every moment:
all the shapes in every word you speak,
each walk among the trees we burn,
and all your ecstatic embrace where safety
is the grandest display of your value.

There are more colors of feathers here, yet.
You, all scarlet and oranges, with your streaks
of skies, and your speckles of ocean,
borrowing green from me, and my forests.
But sepia in memories, lilac in concrete
foundation, emerald in noon lakes, and lily
in my hidden skin, are subtle.

There are washes you have not been
painted with. You have currents
and tides that have not yet moved me.
So wait, lover, and feel all joy
in your despair. Make love
with your reflection, the reward
long-suffering brings to hold you over.
Let me see you burn unto yourself,
and bring a feast to your own table.

Then, mayhap, invite me. And then,
perhaps, I will accept the velveteen seat.
Then, might I bring my candles
and flowers for the private banquet;
My wine, and my sweet, sweet dessert.

Then, and only then, when your plate is full,
as you will know by that time it deserves to be,
I will lay atop the pile, the finishing touch,
and you may have your bite.

Copyright © Season Naify 2014
Written Friday, November 7

Photo from Chef Gary’s Private Dinner Parties