Love comes in so many forms! So many times we feel love for another and they never even know!
Ode to the Social Worker with Violet Hair
I wish I had love lasers
that could blast through glass and steel,
from one minivan to another,
today from mine to an old Toyota Prius
with white peeling paint, I was stuck behind
it from middle to high school.
Irritated at first at the slowness of the driver,
I rescinded at the high school
when a woman opened the back door
and helped a special needs adult
with his job, delivering inner district mail.
It took far longer than reasonable to complete
the task and I watched her
resist the impulse to speed him up,
she turned her body away and leaned against the car.
We fall in love all the time,
in the grocery store with the man in contractor overalls
at Thanksgiving who was buying cranberries
who nodded at the long line
and said, like the Dali Lama,
what can we do but breathe in and out?
It was her violet curls that made me swoon,
hair most likely gray, now defying age and reason
and the purple outfit she wore,
the tie-dyed rainbow scarf,
a get up she might have chosen
to entertain and ease her charges,
she was a grown up muppet,
a bright focus among dulled senses.
As we all do when it is love at first sight,
I projected qualities she may not have
based on her appearance,
perhaps she dressed that way
because she opted out, a rebellion never outgrown,
or smokes cigarettes when he goes to the bathroom,
is the worst office gossip.
It doesn’t really matter,
that is what love does,
distills others to the essence of the Beloved.
I welcomed Violet’s soft belly,
a ring around her middle, a lifesaver
that made me want to float down a river
with her beside me,
or curl up on her lap and have her play
with my hair,
she’d tell me everything was all right,
it’s going to be fine dear, just fine.