Jayne Casselman, Huthmacher Hof owner and soprano, sings Elektra at Seattle Opera, Nov., 2008

Spoke an accented voice, from long ago: You seem to be there when nobody else is… And I don’t even know you! And I answered:

Du kennst mich doch.
Ich bin der jenige,
fuer wem Du gesucht hast.
auf wem Du gewartest hast.
an wem Du getrauemt hast.

Der Jenige der,
wenn Du eine Augen
im Traum schlieBt,
da steht.

Der Jenige der,
wenn Du im Mittenacht
etwas neben Dir verspuerst,
da ist…

Deine Hand zu halten,
Deine Gesicht zu tasten
Deine Haare mit seinen Fingern zu kaemen.

Ich bin’s.

The dying
embers of the fire
needed a little poke
to make the flames climb higher;

to avoid the smoke
that sometimes
climbs
into our eyes
and waters them
but, as we cry,
we are cleansed.
And the fire, stirred,
roars passionately again.

She didn’t seem meek
Speaking,
and sitting,
on the banks of the creek

that cool, rainy day.
But then I watched
her thoughts
float away.

And suddenly
she had no more to say.
So, she ran to get them
But fell in
and couldn’t collect them,
nor could she swim.

And I,
like the nice guy
that I am,
leapt in,
reached out my hand,
and

collected her
thoughts.
Thinking
not
of her sinking

on that cool, rainy day,
but of thinks I’d collected
that she wouldn’t say.
And she floated away.

The silence deafens
and suprises me;
the lack of women’s letters
I’d hoped to see.

Perhaps SuperBusyWomen
don’t, after all, have the time
to leave their hurried, rushed lives
and listen to my rhyme.

Perhaps she who I put on the shelf
was right!
But still, my keyboard and I forge
into the empty night.

Where I discover poetry is writ not for she,
nor them, nor thee, but — alone — for me.

A woman wanted to be/
a better writer/
so I took her to the beach/
and walked beside her./

We spoke of the Bard,/
and his poetry;/
It was not hard/
how the words came to me,/

as we danced/
on the sand./
I romanced;/
she held my hand./

It was effortless; the words came easily,/
to describe her fairness and lasting beauty!

She gazed
at the lens
not with rage
nor sorrow, not again.

This time
is hers.
Strong, sublime;
she conquers.

Controls the pain,
walks her own path.
Determined again;
Keeps life in her grasp.

I know her only through another’s lens;
I weep, and embrace visions of a friend.

————–
[Thank you for the opportunity
to be witness to a fight
which so deeply moves me.]

To see part of the upcoming breast cancer photographic documentary “Relearning Loveliness”, go to my friend’s website: http://www.nityiadesign.com