SamadhiMuse

“At the Friendship Society”

These formal meetings, leave me empty,
gestures and motions, politeness,
and the table settings.

I try to get down to sharing views,
but we end up sitting in frozen tea parties.

The chairman talks and talks and
when it’s our turn, we ask:

…”What’s the best size group?”

…”My sister in Ohio, said…”

He says the US has its misconceptions.
It is true.
I want to ask about Soviet misconceptions.
but my words fly, ignored.

The hands wave,
and we will leave empty.

gallagher
2 Jul 87
Tashkent, USSR

Dark eyed beauties, Caucasian princesses,
in these mountains behind China’s flank
so far from home.

Smiles and eyes passing
…our eyes meet;
sisters of this distant land.

There are stories running here
which I will never know
save for these passing looks
in exotic eyes.

Arm in arm, they pass me;
their words strange music
to my ears.

And as they pass,
our moments touch;
like curtains in the wind.

So many women in this world
made of such love
and distance.

gallagher
5Jul87
Alma Ata, USSR

There is no place where life is more real
than the moment in which we live
and the place in which we stand.

No reflection, in word or song,
no matter how passionately done,
can equal this immediate life we live.

There in the hands and the eyes
of someone loved
is more, with every emotion given
and care taken,
than a hundred books could ever record.

The love we give is all there is.

gallagher
07Jul87
Leningrad, USSR