You and I
I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or
whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.
--Chang Tzu
You're high on driving the red Ferrari
when my trip is the Monarch Butterfly,
so we weekended their fall safari,
and bonded, on Point Pelee,* years gone by
I marvel you still love me; how you try;
polarity's the pull without the oath.
How does the Viceroy not identify?
The very mimicry benefits both.
Everything au contraire, la guerre to Goethe,
yet every quarrel ends corralled in care,
sustains us yet supports our separate growth,
symbiosis patterned pied-a-terre.
Imprint more potent than the need to cling,
one loves stronger, the grace a precious thing.
Helga Ross 2006
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Isosceles, or What?
Pondering The Eternal Triangle
Triangles are a geometrically stable shape: the strongest.
One kind, Isoscelese, has two equal sides and two equal angles.
Call the compulsion divine distraction,
the looking-back way to see into true
the bad and good that's one right reaction:
the devil, the angel, in me, in you.
Happy, we thought, till we happened-and then
the heartbeats match too much, and we obsess
and try not to transgress, time and again,
and dish a small death serving selfishness-
My Other would die that I lie. I swore-
But, we're lovers-see us in each other,
and, or, missing parts adore, discover,
and sin is a blessing worth living for.
Who'd do what's just and hurt us, or all three-
devil or angel-opt for secrecy?
Helga Ross 2007
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In-Between Time