Messy Intimacy and Resultant Dialogue

We lived in a dream but the dream passed. Downstairs I hear the whir of a sewing machine, the hiss of a tea kettle, the low murmur of a mother talking to her oldest daughter. Abruptly, one has to relearn what it means to love, and in doing so reflects on the Chinese understanding of crisis as a time of both danger and opportunity. Crocuses, crack-ups, cranberry bean stew. Early confusion about sex - largely in terms of not being ready for the messy intimacy and resultant dialogue - bleeds into my early fifties, leaving me raw and unsteady considering love. Elderly layer hens tear at the lawn, Jeremiah tears at the bracken overwhelming the flower garden, and I tear at the closet in my heart which hides - or once hid - the Lord. Please me please? The point is, Hansel grows up and knows he was saved by a power greater than himself but can't say how or who, and in this way the patriarchy goes on mindlessly violate. "If you'd like to get your shit together, now would be a good time." The vast desert of our denial, the hurt any sacrifice engenders. Tomorrow I will write you a long letter, you whose name I am forbidden to utter.