Heather M. Browne – Three Poems


 

Paper Boat Love

She sails to him in paper
Boats
Floating light upon his sea
Holding so little weight
Caressing his shoulders, thighs
With letters of love
Folded tenderly
Bending upon his waves
Her cursive ink in feathered plume
So soft to stroke
To touch
Within his muscled rolls and rocks
Gentle

Her colours run
Upon his wet
Dripping within his blues
To smear and smudge
His lips
And licks
Taking her in
Atop his tongue
Leaving her mark
In swallow

Her unweaving fibers
Loosening
She lays down her sails tenderly
Upon his chest
Laying flat and still, he
Believing himself the conqueror
Overpowering and overbearing
Not yet realizing, she
His raft


 

Morning

Morning rose in buttercups
orange marmalade and thick
dribbled on triangle toast
Her five petaled hands
overlapping
lustrous in prayer
I hear the buzz of bees
The stem of morning
sharp-knived and green
slicing high above the ground
And deep within her throat
placed this anointed gift,
the honey of evening dew glistens


 

Sacrifice

She wrapped herself in mourning clouds
dusted with the scent of angels
fresh rain
lightning bending upon itself
shaping peaks for sterling tiaras or crowns
Opalized and emerald jewels color her eyes
Rimmed ebony sheen
feathers of birds
falcon beating fiercely
racing to touch the sun
Cumulous puff from peace pipes
calling their rain dance
eagle feathers and bones swing
from leathered cords
skinned and cut
a buffalo in its past life
now bringing contentment
to this reddened land, Mother Earth
the pale face who hunted him down
An arrow kills more precisely
more quickly than fire
gifting each inhalation
galloping against the wind
tribal drums beat
leaping toward her sky
hallucinating she is royal
sacrificed and shining
burnt on a lighting strike or stake


 

Author’s Statement on Beauty

Beauty is the willingness to look at something and choose to see something attractive, unique, or different,  There is beauty everywhere if we train our eye to look for what stands out or captures us.  Just like there is love present in some form always,  I am drawn to what is creative or unseen, versus the typical standard, a different way of seeing, or saying, or moving, a different way of touching someone or exciting them.  Beauty is the ability to see beyond. It is in wanting to look below to the pulse. Beauty is the struggle to contemplate the heart.


 

Heather M. Browne is a faith-based psychotherapist. Her work has been  published in the Page & Spine, The Lake, Knot, and elsewhere. Red Dashboard released her first collection, Directions of Folding, in 2014. More at: thehealedheart.net.