Eucalyptus
Tag: Elizabeth Weaver
poetry, writing, novel, yoga, restorative yoga, improv, near death, asthma, hope, social imbalance
The Gift
THE GIFT
Six years had passed, yet having heard of Catherine’s return, Leo stopped in the doorway of her studio, his approach along the cobbled street masked by the ancient whir of her potter’s wheel. He could feel her like a phantom in his palms. She remained robust with deep contours, sensual swells, as she spread wet clay with her index and thumb, her thumb so unlike a baboon’s yet she had backed against him as fierce as a baboon.
He lit a match and watched her kohl-lined eyes dart in his direction. Holding her gaze, he drew the flame’s heat through his parted lips as if inhaling her, her thick graying hair loosely piled on her head as if she could contain the untamable.
“Leo,” she said as if they had seen each other yesterday, as if she had been expecting him, then returned to her piece, indenting shallow prints beneath the vessel’s wide ridge.
He had no words. Too many years between good-bye and hello. Good-bye, a note he could not read. He had to hear its words from a man he hardly knew as this neighbor translated the dark scratches along the pale perfumed paper that told Leo his Catherine was gone, would not return, could no longer live with their cruelty. He ripped the letter from this intruder’s hand, spit at his feet, and slammed the door, knocking one of her vases to the floor, its crackling chased him before it abandoned him to the emptiness of his hurried steps
“Hello, Catherine,” he said like a prayer. “You are back.”
“Yes,” she replied, eyes trained on the vase whirling between her palms.
“Married?”
“What do you want?” she said, looking up.
Leo noticed the ravens still perched in her eyes. Smoke filled his lungs as he drank in the soft lines around her mouth that had held him with the passion of a boa swallowing prey yet had also stung him with a wasp’s fury.
He wanted to strike her, hear her plead for forgiveness, beg him to allow her to return. Instead she returned to her clay, fingers scraping the hollow of the swirling vase as she swept the sides wider apart. Leo flicked his cigarette in the trench between cobblestone and whitewashed building, pulled a red silk scarf from his jacket pocket, flashed it in the air then snapped it open. Catherine’s head flicked toward him. Clasping the scarf, Leo shoved it in his loose fist. Her eyes widened.
“Leo, don’t ”
“Still deaf and blind.”
Her mouth opened but before her words touched the air, Leo’s hand turned, rotated back, arced forward and opened. A white, one-eyed dove flew from his palm to her shoulder.
Before the bird’s wings settled against its side, Leo turned from the earth-scented room and continued along the maze of cobblestones that wound through a town that would never be hers.
Thank you to the editors of riverbabble for first publishing this story.
Five years old!
Joya entered our lives heavily pregnant, matted, burred and emaciated after having been abandoned on the streets. The day after Joya came here, she got a bath, a full body shave and a vet check.
Five days after her arrival, she gave birth to six large, healthy, hungry puppies.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Nicco! Finley! Koko! Rory! Buckie! and Brady!!!
Each of these birthday pups was adopted by a wonderful family and each is having a great life!
Special thanks to NorCal Poodle Rescue, who ensured their survival since Joya was literally on death’s door when she was rescued from the streets. As Joya’s foster, I was deeply impressed with the commitment NorCal Poodle Rescue provided to the puppies and Mom. This rescue continues to help too many wonderful dogs in dire circumstances and spreads joy through the world whenever one of these poodles/mixes is adopted.
Rescued
DOG CLOUD
when clean
you feel like a cloud
as I finger your hair
so soft & light
you might drift away
if not
for Love's Gravity
gold as Sun
airy as Sky
You are our Constellation
after we'd raced too long & lost
through stars' buckshot
until You reconnected
those beacons of Light
Beauty & Hope
with balls & squirrels & a belly
splayed
for all the love & joy
our hands could supply
Thank you NorCal Poodle Rescue for letting me foster the wonderful Joya, five years ago today.
Catalyst
CATALYST
As if disintegrating the stone of our being to sand we pour ourselves empty to be remade beyond the merciless sins we rise above. The beauty of your breast cleaved away, my lungs stomping their sun-fire dance always, yet we reshape ourselves as balm for each other till we can bear our stories’ terrible weight and are transformed as if to sound— water on granite, wind through pine, an osprey’s haunting cry.
Thank you to the editors of The Tishman Review for first publishing this poem.
Love as…
And if you are to love,
Love as the Moon loves;
it does not steal the night
It only unveils
The Beauty of the dark
Passing
PASSING
you're in Hawaii so I drove to your house clicked off the headlights rolled down the windows and bathed in the dry oak and grass winds that normally surround you which made me think of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, how for decades they missed each other, each too proud or lost to find themselves back to the other's laughter and company all that longing over language used and I wonder if your life is so full that one less relationship is relief or if this same ragged cloth beating my face and chest wind-whips through the vacuum I've left
Thank you to the editors of Apollo’s Lyre for first publishing this poem.
Sachet
Sand
SAND
brown naked body sprawled beneath the sun scars of ritual and beauty crossing its belly where birds, dogs and people have left tracks soon made invisible by waxing tide
Thank you to the editors of Agape: A Creative Arts Magazine for first publishing this poem.
Turn
Religion is a process of turning your skull into a tabernacle, not
going up to Jerusalem once a year.
