Words would only interfere
with the woman she is.
Her young face is oddly mature.
Like a woman who has lived
in the same cottage for years.
Her eyes the cast of drapes half drawn,
as if they look out rather than in.
A mouth ready to smile but does not.
A quality of the pensive, diffident,
maintained by a profound balance
of resignation and hope.
A charismatic woman, at a wedding,
sharing time with me,
among tables of relatives and friends.
We shared blood.
Watched the people,
mostly unknown relatives.
History can be twice what it is.
She spoke of a long time companion,
who was ill.
A man older than she,
but an older understanding inside her.
She seemed to have lived in another country.
Sophisticate, classical,
whose language purveyed
a warm romance in its sounds and meanings.
We visited the evening away,
by the lagoon of a bay
with the scent of shore grass and flowers.
I enjoyed her rarity,
the unique colors of a personality
not unlike the poetry of a poem.