Rhonda Laurel


Dear Heart

I have been waiting to give my heart away.

Waiting by the side of a country dirt road.
Waiting on the platform of the train station where you left me that night.
Waiting in a crowded restaurant at a table for one.

I do not know how to let it go.
Not sure if you will return it in a million pieces.
Or steal it and then throw it away.

Will you protect it on life’s long journey?
Will you nurture it when I am in pain?
Will you give me the breath of life when I feel I don’t have one?
Will you give me your heart in exchange?

Take care of dear heart.
I need it to breath, to speak, to listen to the words that you say.
I need it to be whole, to be human.
I need it to find my way to you.

I need it to make the journey and back again


One

A STATIONARY DRIFTER.

A FAN OF THE UNDERDOG.

CHAMPION OF LOST CAUSES.

LOGICAL LIKE A KLINGON

EXCEPT WHEN MY FAMILY’S CONCERNED.

Loyal like a dog.

A people watcher.

A tongue sharp like a razor’s edge.

Love a good laugh.

Not a fan of the past.

A passionate woman.

Own rose colored glasses.

Destined for infamy.

My own worst enemy.

Power behind the throne.

Appreciate fine things.

Weary of strangers.

Love him.

Jack of all trades.

Master of one.


Return To Eden

Do you think of me as your oasis?

Your supreme paradise of truth and beauty?

In a perfect world I would be sought after like a rare gem or an
exotic flower.

You seek refuge from the harshness of the outside world to
become whole again.

To remember who you were when you were inside the gates of Eden.

As you ponder why you ever left in the first place,

I wonder why you thought you could ever return


Roots

How deep are your roots?

Do they dig firmly into the ground from hundreds of years of
fertilization?

Or are they easy to unearth like a newly potted plant?

Do they plunge deep down to the center of the earth?

Or do they spread out and infuse themselves with roots of another?

Can your roots survive a drought?

Can it withstand leaves slowly falling away from the tree up top?

Can your roots feel the pain of branches being torn away by age, time and acts of the divine?

In the end will the leaves say, ‘those are your roots not mine’?

Destroy the tree if you will but the roots will always survive.

*previously published in The Writer’s Post Journal - August 2004


Southern Comfort

I knew this man.
A proud, stubborn southern man.
Proud of his southern ways.
Proud of his family and the life he’s lived.

This strong, gentle man taught me a thing or two about love.
We met in a time when the world was not ours for the taking.
But we took as much as we could.

A life made of glass, implausible by chance.
His ways were not my ways.
And my ways were not his.
Who knows what will happen when southern gentility meets a citified heathen.
But we shared the same dream.
My world will always be a better place because of Southern Comfort.