"put careful lips to slick / petals, snuff up gold"

May you feel a seed's pulse today. May you know you are Beloved.

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Little Lion Face

by May Swenson

Little lion face
I stopped to pick
among the mass of thick
succulent blooms, the twice

streaked flanges of your silk
sunwheel relaxed in wide
dilation, I brought inside,
placed in a vase. Milk

of your shaggy stem
sticky on my fingers, and
your barbs hooked to my hand,
sudden stings from them

were sweet. Now I'm bold
to touch your swollen neck,
put careful lips to slick
petals, snuff up gold

pollen in your navel cup.
Still fresh before night
I leave you, dawn's appetite
to renew our glide and suck.

An hour ahead of sun
I come to find you. You're
twisted shut as a burr,
neck drooped unconscious,

an inert, limp bundle,
a furled cocoon, your
sun-streaked aureole
eclipsed and dun.

Strange feral flower asleep
with flame-ruff wilted,
all magic halted,
a drink I pour, steep

in the glass for your
undulant stem to suck.
Oh, lift your young neck,
open and expand to your

lover, hot light.
Gold corona, widen to sky.
I hold you lion in my eye
sunup until night.


May Swenson, from New & Selected Things Taking Place, Finalist, National Book Awards 1979 for Poetry, Little Brown & Co (New York)

Art: The Liquid Gold of Peace. Pieter Claesz. Soutman and Abraham Allard, 1713.

Art: Sunflowers. Vincent Van Gogh, 1887.

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Invitation

Look for a living plant, vegetable or mineral and ask it a question.

Listen with your body for its hum. Does it vibrate in your upper body, or your lower?

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Thank You

Thank you to all my friends here who contributed to sponsor my 5-day fast for Gaza. It raised the goal of $5000 for food aid, which has been sent directly to Fadi in North Gaza to distribute food to families. Thank you for your trust, solidarity and love showed through via sharing your resources with my campaign.

May all beings be safe. May all beings be free.