silence

i could tell you about my day, what went right, what went wrong, everything that happened. i could talk about the news, the girl who got engaged, the old woman who died. i could talk about the weather, what it was today, its predictions for tomorrow. but i, i want to be with you in silence.

i don't want to speak. let the poets have their words, the singers their lyrics. let not speech diminish the fullness of our presence. i want to be with you in silence. let my touch be my voice, my breath your song, no other words spoken.

the wind blows, knocking branches against the windows, whistling through the cracks this late winter night. inside our small house, though, a fire burns and i feel warm, comforted, safe. and i am filled with your presence.

words are so small. should i attempt to speak they would make us less instead of more, so i remain in silence. i sit you down, take off your shoes, slowly kiss your feet. i feed you what my own two hands have made this day, what warms you and strengthens you. i look into your eyes and see eternity.

there is a time for conversation, a time to speak.

now, though, is a time for us to be. and we are in silence.

photography by permission

cindy lee jones

incense

night surrounds us and you are become to me a fragrance in the darkness. no whispered words, no rich embrace, you lie silent and exhausted in your sheets...yet i am held in your slumber as much as in your wakefulness, and this in your aroma.

darkness is heavy. i cannot see you or even at the moment feel your form, but the scent of you, even in its subtleties, speaks to me of












your presence, and i take joy in the balm of you. the smell of plain soap lingers in the softness of your warm, cotton shirt this cold night. the scent of woodsmoke from the fire you stoked just before bedtime, the freshness of night air from your evening walk, a trace of lavender oil from your bath, the smell of your skin, of your breath.... you are a bouquet, as much to me a scent as a voice or a touch, and the sweat of you is my perfume.

i taste you. i drink you. i take you in. and it is the smell of you that yields your soul to me now.

photography by permission
rassouli

present tense

i love watching you tonight, seeing the light of the moon dance in your eyes as you stand bundled up in warm winter wear and your smile sparkles with the stars in the sky. the cold is not bitter but sweet and makes us feel all the more warm in the soft thermals that hug our skin in the layer of clothes closest to our nakedness. i drink you in, breathe the sight of you and memorize every line that i may taste you on my tongue as long as the fates allow. the wind is crisp but the air is clear and on this snow-covered mountain life is as good as it gets and i can ask for nothing more. the soft smell of burning wood drifts about us.

i have a history and i have a future but in you i have neither, as you abide only in present setting. you are here and now and even when you are away it is the same. you are my present tense. when i am with you it is as though we have never been apart, and when we are apart it is as though i hold you still. when two have come together, how can anyone think they are ever again separate? you are in me and i in you and the definition of now is marked. you are my present tense. i am forever held by you, by who we have become, by what we share. there is no absence of you. i carry you in me; i breathe you into the air that i respire; i sweat the scent of you and breathe you in again. and our time together is forever now.

photography by permission

of the artist ron porter

what we have

i don’t know what this is
not now
today
and i don’t have to know what it will become
tomorrow
i just know that it is
and that it is what it is
now and today

i needed to know what it was
yesterday
for, how could i be what it was
and how could i become what it will be
if i didn’t know what it was?
and trying to know what it was
cost me what it is
until i let go
of its knowing

it doesn’t matter what it was
yesterday
and i don’t care what it will become
tomorrow
as it is that it is what it is
today
and there is nothing anyway
except today
and today
we have what this is

photography by permission

graham jeffrey

being with you

being with you means more than how it feels to be with you. being with you also means how it feels after being with you.

i love how i feel after being with you.

after being with another one could be left with emptiness, an aftertaste, a bittersweetness. one could be left torn and scattered, and then scramble to reassemble. one could be depleted or perhaps confused. one could feel nothing at all.

but i love how i feel after being with you.

i am cleaner, richer, sweeter. i am more peaceful, more content, deeper into my own self.

i am become more of who i am.

when one leaves another whole, and complete, the coming together was as it should be.

when one is left closer to who she is on the inside, when she is left full not of another but of her own self, the joining is pure.

i am at home when i am with you.

and i love how i feel after being with you.

photography by permission

graham jeffrey

you are with me when i lie down

you are with me when i lie down.

i come into the quiet of my room, leaving the noise and busyness of the world behind. i stand for a moment, cherishing my own space, my own presence. slowly i discard what i have worn, strip myself of that which has covered me, protected me, even disguised me, and allow my garments to drop to the floor. i let go my armor. my white skin is naked, my body bare, and in my vulnerability i find my own deliverance.

i gently climb into my bed. i lay me down to rest.

the coolness of the sheets comforts me; the crispness of the cotton renews me. i cover myself that i may be protected from the chill air. i feel the thickness of the mattress beneath me—i am supported as though by the Universe. i feel the softness of the bed linens above me. i am embraced. i am held.

i close my eyes and it is now that i feel your presence. your quiet breath fills the room softly and gently, but as steadily as the movements of the ocean. i allow myself to settle into the sound of your soft breath; the breath is at once our most fragile possession and our greatest support and in this moment i am carried by yours. this is my dance.

your scent surrounds me and i surrender to your sweetness.

your arms reach for me and embrace me and hold me close. i am cherished.

i wholly let myself go and there is no judgment, no expectation, no requirement, no need. there is only being, being here now. i drift into peaceful slumber.

you are with me when i lie down.

there is nothing else.

photography by permission

cindy lee jones

serious

“is it serious?” the question startled me, hanging heavy in the air, hovering over the coq au vin, the perfect white linens, the gleaming tableware. “is it serious?”

your presence in my life, my world, is often questioned, queried, prodded, probed, our relationship scrutinized. what does it mean? where will it go? who is he to where you are and who you will become? and this, tonight’s dinner inquiry, about the man they know to whom i've given my time. “is it serious?”

i hesitate, searching for the response that will most clearly reflect the truth as you would claim it but then i realize the answer is not for what i am to you but for who you are to me and i reply straight from my heart. “yes,” i answer. “it is serious.”

photography by permission

cindy lee jones

confession

we crossed paths
unexpectedly
surprised to find one another
after all this time

you look great
i said
and he did
you do too
he said
he felt the same

his success
has been grand
in a corporate world
mine, quiet
but rich, and deep

the air was crisp
with a bit of a bite
in its chill
yet the sun was bright
and we felt nothing
but warmth
in each other’s glow

he said
she said
we caught up on
his life
my life
the love he doesn’t have
the love i do

shoppers bustled about us
hurriedly passing
on their way
in a fast-moving world
for a moment
life was still
the sound
of a salvation army bell
marked our time

farewell
goodbye
it’s been great to see you
ways parted
one more time

but wait
he called
coming back
just one more thing
his voice trembled
you are
he said
an amazing woman
and i had always wanted
us
to come to be
though i never
told you so
now, though
i don’t want to spend
the rest of my life
without your knowing
and he was gone

to what purpose
this telling
you might question
but his expression
even out of time
is a gift
and i am embraced
by the words
of a man
brave enough
to let me know

photography by permission

graham jeffery

reflection

i don't know what role you believe you play in my life or to what purpose you feel we have come together, but as for me, i believe you are come to me not only for my knowing you but also for my knowing more clearly who i am. within me i can see myself in only one direction but in you i see myself through another's eyes.

my vision is incomplete without your sight, my mirror not full absent your reflection.

how can i wholly know who i am without i see me from the outside.

without you i know myself only in the giving but with you i can touch how i am received. my image is become more perfect.

you bring to me many gifts, not the least of which is this, that i may come to see more clearly who i am, and in knowing you i am no longer stranger to my own self.

photography by permission

graham jeffery

being adored

he bows at my feet
and i am humbled
by so much adoration

his words caress my heart
his soothing voice
becomes my succor
and soon
i taste naught
but his longing

i am washed in the waters
of his desire
draped in the robes
of his affection

i am his temple and he
a man in worship
we two are become sanctified
we are holy
one to the other

photography by permission

cindy lee jones

wanting

sometimes i wonder
what it is like
to want someone
as much as i once
wanted someone
and i wonder
if i will ever
want someone
like that again

then i am next to you
and in a moment
i want someone
as much as i have ever
wanted someone
and i wonder
what it is like
not to want someone
the way that i want you

photography by permission

cindy lee jones

womb poetry

i have discovered a brand-new wonderful site, womb poetry, featuring the work of contemporary poets who self-identify as women. feminine expressions is included in the list of artists.

i cannot imagine a more lovely name to be associated with than that of womb poetry.

i am a birthing place. i am a place of nourishment. i am a womb.

and i am honored to be included in this site.

diana christine

my beloved...

my beloved
you are my sun, my light, my warmth
my joy
you are my comfort, my desire, my inspiration
my hope
my love

in my life so far, a life richly filled with gifts that touch and stir, open and lead, nourish and caress, you are the most beautiful and most profound gift i have been given. i have said before and it remains true, if at any time since our first meeting our paths separated and we never saw one another again, i would spend the rest of my days giving thanks to the Universe for who you are in my life and who you are in me.

as well, though, you are my struggle, my labor, my emptiness, my wondering why. we have shared, we have wrestled, we have learned, we have loved, and we have become who we are now. i want to say who we are now will gently and lovingly give way to who we are tomorrow but then i am reminded there is no yesterday or tomorrow, that both directions are contained in who we are now. how lovely that everything we will experience and become is already within me and every experience we have already shared is in the same place. we are always who we were and we are always who we will become.

i love our partnership and its many different levels. i love how we continue to unfold and open and grow. like a stream of waters traveling across a land through mountains and fields, our relationship ever changes in its reflections and hues. there are parts of us that are staid and there are parts of us that transform and shift and always move. the steady part of us could not continue without the changes, and the changing parts of us would be meaningless without the staid.

i taste your fragrance in my own breath. i hear your melody in my own song. i could poetically say i cannot imagine a world without you in it but i already know…you are part of who i am and you are forever part of my world.

i cannot imagine a world without you in it because there is no world without you in it.

photography by permission cindy lee jones

can it be taught?

brood mode asked "can it be taught?" in response to my previous post.

she begs the question can one teach another how to touch and can another teach one how to receive?

it seems to me brood mode brings truth. one cannot "teach" how to receive, for how can such a thing be taught?

however, if one is willing to listen quietly to how another wants to be touched and she responds to this leading, she then becomes fully present to the other who in turn begins to receive all of her through this same touch.

one can, in her gentleness, her tenderness, her patience, and her quietness, open the way for another to learn how to receive.

it is, perhaps, through our submission to each other that we find each other's richest gifts.

teach me
how to touch you...

i will teach you
how to receive...

photography by permission

cindy lee jones

the earth
like a lover
offers me all that i would have
but i, in my reluctance
accept but a taste of what she would give

and yet…
one taste
one kiss
begs complete surrender
and i am drawn to her full embrace

having drank of her waters
i cannot but long for more

emboldened by her taste on my tongue
i swim to deeper waters
willing to be consumed by her

stockings...

soft music surrounds me and the scent of lavender fills the air as the fragrance of my bath lingers. i luxuriate in these quiet moments and indulge in the pleasures of bathing and clothing myself. how pure my cleansing and how lovely my rituals of dressing. we seem to expend so much of ourselves in the selection of clothes for how they make us look when the true gift is how they make us feel. i adore the softness of a silk camisole and the crispness of a cotton dress, love how they move with me and dance with me. i love a hat that makes me feel elegant and pearls that make me feel pretty. and stockings, i love stockings that make me feel sexy.

when i was a girl i could hardly wait for my first pair of stockings, real stockings. in my growing up there was perhaps no other rite of passage more significant than this, nothing else that spoke more clearly to the world one’s movement from being a little girl to becoming a young woman than that of wearing women’s hosiery. in my family it was mother who decided when we were considered to be grown-up enough to wear stockings, and all we could do was wait, wait and dream of what it must feel like to be a grown-up woman. my older sister got her first pair of nylon stockings one easter morning and i was waiting for my turn. i had long ago given up the lace anklets of my little-girl years and was wearing a school-girl’s knee socks but i longed for my first pair of stockings. at the time i felt that it would never happen.

finally it came to be. i was a young teenaged girl excitedly opening presents on christmas morning when surprisingly one of my gifts was a pair of stockings. i opened this first pair of stockings and held them in my hands like the treasure they were to me; they were not a pair of sheer nylons but instead a pair of white fishnet stockings. and not pantyhose, they were fishnet stockings that call for the wearing of a garter belt (a suspender belt). over the years i have worn many different garters, wonderful sweet garters in many pretty colors but my first was simply a plain, efficient garter belt, nothing sexy about it at all. except to me. this was the most wonderful garment ever worn underneath my dress and i felt like the sexiest girl in the world (i knew what sexy felt like before i knew the meaning of the word). i felt wonderfully grown-up and pretty and important. i had come to be. l loved my first pair of stockings.

my hosiery has changed over the years. in the beginning my stockings had reinforced toes and heels and i had to take care in lining up the hose to match my foot. elasticity was not woven into them the way it is in those i wear today and my hose required constant attention to ensure they were not sagging around the knees or the ankles. then came pantyhose and the struggle to match the left leg with the right leg. it seems so easy to me now but in the early years if i put on my pantyhose with a slight twist from one leg to the other, i would have to pull them down and start over, sometimes two or three times. and in hot summers with no air conditioning it was nearly impossible to put on a pair of pantyhose without getting the nylons twisted on sweating legs. when i was young i worked in a bank in a very small town, and company rules dictated that all the women who work there wear dresses and hose. one of the ladies i worked with, a much older and a very large woman, walked with a swish-swish-swish of her hose as her legs always rubbed together when she walked. all these years later when i walk down a corridor i still carefully note that i don’t walk with a swish-swish-swish. i have not forgotten the possible difficulties with hosiery, but i have always been in love with them.

i still love stockings. i have come to know the pleasure of naked legs under my clothes, and in truth i now spend my summers in dresses and skirts with bare naked legs. i love smoothly shaven, bare legs beneath my dress. still, i love stockings. beautiful hosiery makes my legs shimmer and glisten and feels wonderfully silken. in the quiet of my mornings i put them on slowly, unrolling them carefully and feeling each movement as my legs and my stockings become one. when i am seated wearing a skirt and stockings and i cross my legs, my legs feel as sexy as i know they look. no one has to be around. i feel sexy all by myself.

my stockings wrap my legs in luster, embrace them, kiss them, and do so in every possible manner. i have known black and white and tan and nude; opaque and sheer and patterned and plain. once upon a time years ago i even had a pair of pure silk stockings, the softest i could ever have imagined.

my music continues to play as i let my towel drop to the floor and i begin to pour oils over my skin, massage lotion over my arms, my neck, my breasts. my candle flickers in the evening breeze as i slip my frock over my head and my soft black dress drapes my body. i sit down on the side of my bed and begin to unfold onto my feet the loveliest stockings of all, french cut, sheer black, with back seams…

august 26...

in my world no one realizes the beauty this day holds for me. today is a day only i know and observe and celebrate but it is for me a special occasion. one year ago today i gave birth to feminine expressions and from its beginning i began to find my way to expressing the wonder and joy of my feminine experience. i love and cherish everything that belongs to being a woman and only during the past twelve months have i begun to find a voice in unveiling the depth of my womanhood to you.

and you…you have been beautifully receptive, and in your receiving me i have felt nourished, encouraged, and sustained. had it not been for your comments and emails, i would not have found the courage to continue such writing and would not now be finding my way back. to those of you who have sorrowed that i have been absent from my writing, your grief is met by my own. i have missed being here. i have many things to write and today is a perfect day to return.

and so, on this new august 26, let me begin anew…

the massage

it is my deep and rich pleasure to experience the earth through your body…
how i love to spend long, lingering time caressing you, touching every part of you in one seamless setting…
an hour, two hours, however long it takes, though in this touch there is no such thing as time…

there is a truth in this loving touch…

when i touch you there exists nothing else and i am wholly with you. yet when i touch you there is everything else, as i receive the whole earth in you…
when i touch you i touch the earth and when i touch you i receive her in return…
in you i touch her intelligence. i feel her strength. i hear her waters. i breathe her fragrance. i taste her winds. i see her beauty…

i am comforted by your soft places; i am strengthened by what is firm…
i love the smoothness of your perfect skin. i adore the tenderness of places with soft hair and i love to stroke it gently…
i love your hollows…your fitness…your muscle…

you are the earth and your body her temple…
i touch holiness when i touch you…
i would that i could begin by washing you, baptizing you, then pouring the earth’s oils over your skin, merging them and you…
i love the feeling of nurturing you, of giving to you, of nourishing you. in this i become the earth…

a meditation entered by falling into it, allowing its unfolding, following its course…
there is a depth that can be touched exclusively in this expression, solely in its slow and lingering delivery…
a mountain top that can be reached only by one step at a time to its crest and every step a central part of its conclusion…
this experience builds upon itself as it allows each of us, touch upon touch, to come to our perfection…

i long for your complete resignation, your entire relaxation, your total trust, your full pleasure, your whole satisfaction…
and in my caress i breathe you and taste you, absorb you and fully experience you…

photography by permission graham jeffery

abundance

the path i am called to walk
is not barren
but abundant with rich gifts
if i but open my eyes to see

cool waters
warm breezes
the sweetest fruits to sustain me

you, my beloved
are among my greatest gifts

your fragrance
your song
your light
teach me, touch me
comfort me
and i am strengthened
as i walk

who you are
becomes more
than who you are
as who you are
becomes part of who i am
and the world is forever changed
by my knowing you

i give thanks
for so beautiful a gift
as i walk