Herbal Tarot: VI The Lovers

[vaneramos]

Today's challenge from NaNoWriMo was to take a card from a deck, free write for five minutes, then turn it into a poem.

Herbal Tarot: VI The Lovers

New lovers point and gesture free
no stress just Adam and Eve
the first to walk with brains
their mountains bright
breath of God
blue pansies in her hair
husband by the hand
but she reaches for truth
well-defined muscles
and he is looking into her
paying attention.

When words falter it isn’t new
we don’t feel the rush on our skin
if only we could speak as kindly
as the way we touch one another
love is in the clouds sometimes
a kind of god
takes over our whole bodies
orders us around.

~

Comments

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

Interesting chain of images. I don't always know just what you're saying in these, but I like the pictures your words make in my mind.

And that's an interesting challenge. I don't really think of the typical person owning a deck of tarot cards, but maybe they've become more widespread than I had realized.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I was intrigued with divination as a teenager and had one of the common Tarot decks. After my "born again" experience I threw it out along with Stevie Nicks and a bunch of other things. When I left the church in 1996 I started contemplating other spiritual paths, Wicca among them. One of the first men I ever dated is coincidentally someone you know, Bruce Phillips. As you know I have a strong affinity for plants, so I gravitated toward the Herbal Tarot. It was no accident.

After realizing I was an atheist, I considered giving the deck to someone who could make better use of it. But now that is never going to happen. I'm still drawn to the images, the meanings and presence of the cards. To me they're metaphors, and I keep an inventory of metaphors. They're important to me.