LINDA L. SMITH

March 2008

Linda L. Smith hovers on the verge of mastery as an English graduate student, wondering where life will take her next. She’d rather stay here, but obligations may say otherwise. Her written works have appeared in “Northernlights” and various other local news publications, Toyon, and Howl, the literary magazine of Copper Mountain College in Joshua Tree, California. She yearns to own and operate her own small press. And as no good deed goes unpunished, she is now living in Orange County with her best friend and husband, Bill.

VENUS ON A CHRISTMAS AFTERNOON

Stately, a cold but gracefully carved marble monument to love
Is my body made by an ardent human creator’s hands.
I have stood here, unclothed and unabashed
For more years than anyone can count.
Young and impressionable suitors have sought inspiration at my feet,
Comparing living maidens to my classic charms.

Summers baked my skin, imitating the warmth of corporal flesh
While Springs have seen my head bedecked with apple blossoms.
Autumn gives me slippers of red and gold
But Winter’s chill and frost no goose bumps raised.
Yet the strain of cold has placed fine lines
Where aging wrinkles might have grown.

In morning frost on a Christmas I shone
And all who passed admired my glistening form
As the noontime’s sun melted my gossamer clothes.
This brisk but bright afternoon, no one stopped to look
Except a few children, smirking and deriding
My naked age as obscene and not so sleek.
Then, playing football to work off their feasting,
Some not so young boys, mid-thirties it seemed,
Wandered into my line of sight.

To catch an out-of-bounds pass, one stumbled near,
Handsome, strong, still in his prime of life,
Stopped to stare, admiring my artful definitions.
What captured his attention was not obvious:
The talent of my maker or the perspective of my roundness,
I cannot know.  Smiling winsomely, he gazed at me.
Were I mortal, I would have blushed with desire.
Were I mortal, I would have quivered with passion
To consider that, in my ancient state,
Smitten suitors continued yet to pay their court.

His friends called him back to their game.
Hesitating one moment longer, he rejoined the fun,
A backward glance over his left shoulder,
And he was gone.

I would remember this tableau long into the sparkling freeze of night.
Were I mortal, I might have wept for sorrow.
Were I mortal, I might have regretted the loss.

WILDEST FIRE
August 14, 1999

Born in the friction
Of your fingertips against
My bare skin
It quickly engulfs me.
I am lost to its heat,
Blistered by its
Intensity.

Eventually,
I become paper thin,
Rising on the draft
Of flames dancing
Around me and through me,
Lifting me ever higher
Until I am ashes.
And, as quickly as it began,
I drift gracefully, then,
Transfigured,
Into your tireless arms.