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On a chilled winter morning in captivating New Orleans
She stood near the front of a green and white striped awning,
Nearly motionless among crowds
Waiting for café au lait and three dusted-white beignets.
She could not see them paused there in noisy anticipation
Of the first taste of those sweet flavors
As the saxophone's first notes of "Summertime"
Sounded on the humid air.
She stood not alone, smiling warmly...
Seeing only me under the crisp sky.
Her voice, passionate yet tender,
Fell like dew upon the riverfront magnolias.
In hushed expectancy, I waited, standing in her light,
For a peace I have never before known.
Nancy M. Hill © 25 February 2002
{Rest in Me}{Enough}
{Love's Purpose}
{To The Morning} {The Lighthouse}{top of page}
For Peg, who wonders why I don't write more love poems
Stay and wait for me, my sweetest love,
Wait amidst spring's trembling leaves of restoration,
Wait within a September moon's twice rising blue embrace.
Unrestrained, your love rushes into me
Like waves crashing only then to linger and traverse
A sweeping shoreline tenderly with covering touches...
A thousand grains of sand cannot deny the joining.
Wait for me even as the refusing tide in its undeniable return
Must wait for its inevitable convergence with the sands.
And when I arrive,
Rest in me.
Rest in me as my soul-born whispers stir gently
All that has remained for a lifetime untouched inside you.
Rest in me my love,
And like moonlight, I shall filter into your shadows of aloneness,
Unwrapping them from you.
I bring you a thousand moons to light your life,
A thousand smiles I have saved for you.
And as the waves caress the shore,
So shall I cover you with kisses each hour.
Wait this brief moment,
Then rest in me.
Nancy M. Hill © 24 February 2002
{A Morning in New Orleans}{{Love's Purpose}
{To The Morning} {The Lighthouse}{top of page}
I look at you sleeping in my arms,
your head resting softly against one breast
gently clasped in your hand.
I want to stay like this
until the sun itself rejects another dawning.
Everyday occurrences no longer capture my attention.
The stars could go out and I'd never notice...
because such a light from your love streams into my black world of night.
That I am here and holding you is world enough.
A touch of your fingertips upon my cheek is enough.
Your smile holds eternity.
Us together,
and I want to stay like this.
Nancy M. Hill © 25 February 2002
{A Morning in New Orleans}{Rest in Me}
{Love's Purpose}
{To The Morning} {The Lighthouse}{top of page}
For Peg
You, my love, receive me into your heart.
Let me live out my purpose in this life,
To give you such a love as you have never known.
Take this love, with its tender caresses
Wafting the spicy scent of oranges about us in the setting sun fire
As I trace the smoothness of virgin skin never before kissed.
Seize each moment of my passion for you, with its
Trembling echoes of unleashed want surrounded by
The soft strains of mourning doves perched in the groves beyond.
Capture my lips into yours, with their aching need
Revealed in the murmur that escapes into your waiting mouth.
I am here for you always to bring such a love to you
Where time knows no boundary, where your heart knows no want.
You, my love, gather me to your heart.
Accept this love sanctioned by the circle's keeper,
And allow me to live out my purpose.
Nancy M. Hill © 24 March 2002
{A Morning in New Orleans}{Rest in Me}{Enough}
{To The Morning} {The Lighthouse}{top of page}
This morning, she turned off the bedside light,
5:10, already seeing faint painted sunrise glimmerings,
The coming alive...that singular moment of dawn's building intensity.
She thought of one far away already bathed in a light
Only now reaching her.
She momentarily envied that radiance
For it had held her lover when she could not.
But then she realized...both were connected
By just such simple things
As a sunrise encircling each an hour apart.
Nancy M. Hill © 27 January 2002
{A Morning in New Orleans}{Rest in Me}{Enough}
{Love's Purpose}{The Lighthouse}{top of page}
Reaching upward and inward, {A Morning in New Orleans}{Rest in Me}{Enough}
the lighthouse dreamer
raises to a silvery cresting moon
trembling hands adoring...
even the stars melt into her.
Stepping into a lover's protecting arms,
She converges with her in deepest night
here upon rocks glistening,
shining blackwater silhouette mist,
echoing surf thunder indistinguishable
from pulsing surges
two heartbeats.
Here into her towering sanctuary
above the waves,
this lover she bears.
The newly risen one discerns
within the dreamer's beacon heart
veiled longings,
loneliness eclipsed,
hidden fear--a heart,
searching,
too afraid of being hurt...
afraid of needing and wanting
then it too taken away.
Yet therein the lover
glimpses behind questioning eyes
a light
smoldering amidst a heart she knows
and bravely carves the foggy dark of night,
embracing
Her lighthouse dreamer.
Nancy M. Hill © 22 March 2002
{Love's Purpose}{To The Morning} {top of page}