For My Muse: You Smiled

You smiled,

and the dark, gray branches 

of winter disappeared,

covered in flowers.

The colors revealed themselves for you

as dogwood and magnolia

shed their velvet coats,

showing their creamy white complexions.

Daffodils, nodding their assent,

turned their heads to greet you

as pale, green sprinklings of new leaves

arrayed themselves at your feet.

The tulips' pastel gowns undulated and 

bounced with the breezes as, 

now and then, a petal flew

tracing a path in the air like Ginger Rogers, 

dancing with Fred Astaire.

You smiled

and Spring came.

I'm Looking for New Words

I just want to call you Baby.

Is there any other word 
to tell you how I feel?

Name. 
I say your name and it

brings to life a million gentle dreams.

Just to speak it aloud is a betrayal 
of my feelings, so I call you Sir.

The smile in your blue eyes

is a gleaming star in a galaxy,

the only one I see in a sky deep and blue.

Like the water where I swim,

I want to sink into your embrace,

Twine, entwine you with my love

As I search for new words to call you -

Sweetie. 
Honey. 
Name.
Sir.

But I'll always just want to call you Baby.

Tiny Bubbles

I'd rather be swimming ... or out taking pictures, 

but however clear and blue the sky, the temperatures 

have dropped into the 'teens, and the flag across the street is 

held out nearly straight by the wind.

So here are a couple SPD photos of sketches

I've been working on, impressions of what

I see when I am swimming. I've thought of borrowing

an underwater camera, but I think I would lose

the feeling of what I see when I'm in the pool.

One morning, a coach was working with me

on my stroke, asking me to turn to the side when I breathed,

making certain I kept my head down.

Well, I did just that and what I saw was beautiful!

There was the splash and flow of disrupted water

flowing past my goggles, with the man-made shapes

of the lane markers in the background.

And that was my left eye! In my right,

I saw calmer water, with people in adjacent

lanes swimming by, the water apparently disturbed 
only by the fan-like swarms of tiny bubbles made by their

feet as they kicked. Of course, the trick is to get

both into my drawing/painting efforts. Meh.

Thoughts While Swimming Laps

The water flows around me as I swim,

The way your eyes followed 

the rise and curve of my breasts 

below the neckline of my dress.

I'm glad to have that one treat, 

that bit of warmth to give you,

Wishing your eyes had been your hands,

slipping gently over my body.

Like the water, as I swim, 

over and around,

My love for you rises in clouds of happy 

laughter to greet the stars.

Yeah, yeah, I know I'm supposed to be watching the clock,

keeping track of my time as I swim.

I get lost when I try to follow the clock  and the coach's 

instructions and always end up miscalculating 

the elapsed time. It takes me approximately twenty-two strokes 

to swim 25 meters in about twenty-five seconds, 

so I try go by that and am really disappointed 

when it takes longer. Inevitably, that is what happens

and I end up taking about twenty-five strokes. Damn. 

Being in the water is a sensual experience and,

having been away from the pool for nearly a week,

I was happy to be able to jump into a lane the other night

and feel the water flow around my body, and to

enjoy the physical effort of swimming ...

and to also enjoy those times when the water,

the lights, and the prismatic colors conspire to help me out 

by giving me an idea for a drawing, or whatever.

Now if they would only conspire to help me learn the clock.