Alice O. Howell
Breakfast: in memoriam
I pour you a cup of fragrance: coffee
my hand rests on the bony warmth
of your shoulder
through the clean blue of your shirt.
The sun glances off the glisten of your hair
as you talk, casual
about something with someone -
male voices rumbling.
That touch in common day
flushes me proud knowing secrets: other touches tendered -
your whispered voice at night.
The light shines up through green apples
bananas and rosy grapes
from the sun's bowl centered on the
warm square of wood.
That instant flooded suddenly a great radiance
lit from within with the Life of life
a pellucid presence afar!
Whose voice in the silence taught me?
Share this moment with the god in your heart to keep it forever:
the warm shoulder, the blue shirt -
all that you were, my love
you are.
a.o.howell
"Look for the sacred in the commonplace!"