Leonore Wilson
Passionaria

Passionaria

Here is no heart but only thought
Thought and no heart and the white road
The white road winding among the pastures
Which are pastures of heart without thought.
Pastures of bloom and newborns, and spring routine
That is not part of us, that is not a part
Of loss, the wrinkled passing of desire.
There is too much passion in the pastures
Which is not a part of marriage.
There is wonder and happiness in the pastures.
The white road is dry and sterile.
But in the pastures the water purls over rock,
The voices of lambs are reminiscent of bells.
No one walks up the white road of thought,
Only you and I walking up it bored and tired.
There are decaying holes among the road
And a wind dry as bones, and a patronizing silence.
Years ago my heart would have responded gladly
To your inviting hands, my thoughts were curious
Propitious, and sometimes prurient.
Undo me, I'd say, my body flushed and impatient,
And then there was the stumbling
Over the cracked and bursting earth, there was
The fiddled whispers of the beating heart,
The crouching in green grass and the trampling
Between orchards beneficent with sap and white
With petals; then we clung to the notion
Of love's infinity, the slippery unguent
Of the flesh and the candled-heart's display.
Now I trail behind you on the white road,
Walk as the sun bubbles up and goes.
The pastures become fictitious, giving way
To thought, and thought is only point of view.
Robins fly ahead and race up to the firs;
Hawks watch us tenderly from heaven.
Something once called, something magnificent
We replied to, but now that I know you,
I pace and tremble, pace and tremble,
Enclosed in motion, as if motion were enough.

Poet's Biography:

Leonore Wilson has had poems published in such places as Third Coast, Madison Review, Laurel Review, and Quarterly West. She teaches creative writing at Napa Valley College.