(Poem for Ann)
A simple woman.
Simple in the way a shell is simple
In all its translucent curved beauty,
Delicately shaped by mathematical order,
Echoing the spirals of the galaxies
Spinning in the darkest skies,
Or the whorl of the sunflower’s face,
Under the shimmering wings of the bee,
Legs laden with golden pollen.
Simple in the way a leaf is simple
In all its verdant, veiny sheen,
Its synthesis hidden from human eye,
pulsing with the green miracle
Of captured sunlight,
The same elements as in our very cells;
Forged in the crucible of the stars,
Born when the universe was born.
Simple in the way that love is simple,
In all its warmth and grace,
Its language that of the Divine,
Wired in the brain of our forebears,
Living deep in the synapses of thought,
Lauded in word and song,
Ever sought by humankind.
-Patricia Thrushart
