Silver Gilt Poem by Gabrielle Ciarann Roniyah Baer

Hold still!
Stop blazing those teasing
golden eyes at me.

I know
you have little taste
for my poetic license,
but
you don't see you:
warm, burnished as molten gold,
in the after glow of loving.

Now laugh,
It doesn't matter one.0001 credit
that you've shown this golden loving
to a fair number of the fair, and the dark.

It is a gift freely given after all,
not a secret hoarded to rust away.
Surprised?
Don't worry too hard
about it, love.
You learned this bit of wisdom
at least 12 parsecs ago
without undue thought
furrowing your gold fringed brow.

And I?
I learned from you
to give freely,
to feel
moon-silver in the gold of your arms,
to laugh
to be more alive
than in any life I'd known,
and maybe to teach
a 'hard case'
love's silver-gilt poetry.

written in June 1979