COOL MARTIAN LANDSCAPE




Birth Stone
The older women wise and tell Anna
first time baby mother.
"hold a stone upon your head and follow
a straight line go home."

For like how Anna was working in the
field, grassweeder
right up till the appointed hour
that the baby was to come.

Right up till the appointed hour
when her clear heraldic water
broke free and washed her down.

Dry birth for you young mother;
the distance between the field and home
come in like the Gobi desert now.
But your first baby must born abed.

Put the woman stone on your head
and walk through no man's land
go home. When you walk, the stone
and not you yet, will bear down.
Lorna Goodison, To Us, All Flowers Are Roses



No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison;
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out,
In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones
That ebb and flow by the moon.
William Shakespeare
From King Lear, Act V, Scene iii



To keep a marriage brimming,
with love in your loving cup.
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.
Ogden Nash