grace.

Wondering about grace today: how do I remember my mother getting ready to go out for a special occasion? How did she show me all of her jewelry (opal rings) that seemed so magical, moonstones, opaque and iridescent? What is the time in our lives when we are this glamorous? This polished and revered? How to continue a line of grace through family, how to channel the supreme beauty of my grandmother: nurse from a small town, sloe-eyed, brown-eyed beauty queen, kind to a fault? Is it possible here, in New York City, to capture the spirit of days gone by, old old glamour, of fading twinkle lights, of smoke in the air?

from Grove of Academe (6)

.......

"no, these are camomile-daisies

that I crush as I reach out;
Arabian-gum fragrance?
no, that was the amber-beads

on the cherry-bark,
and the sticky pine-bark,
and sassafras-bark that we bit on,

and some dusty butter-and-eggs
(wild snap-dragon)
in a hot lane;"..............

(from 'Hermetic Definition' by H.D.)