By Linda Goodman
Date: 20 May 1999

Before the World's Awake

  maybe Raphael's and Botticelli's jeweled colors
  Rembrandt's and Da Vinci's too..were real
          not just painted

  the way Life looks
  through crystals of tenderness

          You smiled at me tonight
              at the bottom of the stairs
             with so much love in your eyes
             swimming in a mist of almost-tears

        all you said was..
   
   "let's go for a walk, in the woods
     tomorrow, at dawn
            just you and me..alone
        before the world's awake

    I'll show you how we can make a deer
                      come near
      by remaining very, very still
                     ..projecting kindness"

   and all I said was..

   "I'll set the alarm for five"

             but we were stained glass
             ruby red and azure blue....and the choir was singing