untethered universe

I watch the universe expand on the tip of a pin, needing no space at all and having all the space it needs to capture the rumble of each droplet, the beat of its heart having suddenly become my very own.

And you, holding the hammer of cymballed music, cocoon this kaleidoscope of tender fury within the folds of my soul. 

I love you, you say, and my heart breathes a lullaby of untethered joy.

I follow the steps coloring my feet and skip nimbly along the path, your key clutched to my breast, right next to my heart.

(c) 2017 Iris B. Struller

A fretful mind

A fretful mind unstilled as yet

Can't pinpoint memory

Of old joy, pain held close to heart

And yet let go again.

Why can't I capture you anew

Old story lived through, kind?

Why won't you come back, visit me,

Return, for once, to mind?

Lived through the situation

That I now can't recall

Lived through and then forgotten

A friendly lie, that's all.

I'm old and gray, I know it well:

No secret it's of mine.

My memory is, however, faint

My story it won't find.

Again I stare into kind eyes

Beckoning me to speak,

To answer question braced at me

To tell my secret deep.

But can't recall, try as I might

To dig out memory.

This slip of mind, my constant friend

Why won't you bypass me?

Where did you go?

When did you leave?

Not able to recall.

It is as though I never lived,

Stumbled before the fall.

And still you stand in front of me,

Familiar eyes on me

You smile quite kindly, comforting,

Knowing what I can't see.

(c) 2017Iris B. Struller