kindled
– Poetry by Nan Williamson –
This morning, my body unfurls from sleep,
soft sheets teasing bare breasts, groin thrumming.
Outside my window, a goldfinch whistles and warbles.
I laugh aloud. There are miracles in the garden: water spurts
from the fountain, splashes over mossy stones, licks
my bare feet. Lush late blooming peonies bend
in sweet heaviness until the lover sun urges them awake.
They unfold glad petals, tip perfume to the air.
Renoir painted them open: brushed on thin washes
strokes of iridescent white, daubed the centre–soft dots
veined with purple, faintly crimson shadow. He caught
the creamy petals’ silky feel. Peonies, dew-slippery,
wanton, luxurious in their prime, as if aware
that imminent rain will leave the petals pale and splayed.
I walk around all day, naked under my clothes,
half-annoyed as you tug at my roots again,
planted long in the garden of affection
and easy love. Tenuous links with old romance
mix memory and desire,enough to renew faith
in my own power. I move more assuredly now,
seductively, little tongues of fire flickering low.
Astonished by appetite at my age, I am amused:
these sudden surges of desire disrupt the current
narrative. Last night, I felt both beautiful –and unprepared
About the Author – Nan Williamson
Nan Williamson is a teacher, artist and author living in Peterborough. She is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers, Toronto, 2013. Her chapbook, leave the door open for the moon, was published by Jackson Creek Press in 2015. Nan is inspired by beauty – natural, or created in art, music, poetry, and secondly, by her love of language and the craft of writing.
Her poems have been published in many juried literary journals and anthologies in Canada and the UK. She is the illustrator for Delicate Impact, a Canadian anthology of poetry, A Beret Days Book, The Ontario Poetry Society, 2018. Besides poetry and art, she loves red wine, chocolate, her 1870 home, and Rod’s veal stew with black olives.
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