THE WARMTH OF THE ORCHID QUILT We are walking home from the dance, our bodies are one, As they were on the sawdust covered dance floor. The fiddlers fiddled us to another land, the whistles blew us to the coast of Ireland, the ocean pounding it's mighty agua hammer to the cliffs by County Cork, and we so homesick. My Grammy had sent us a quilt to America, she thought it always as cold as home. You and I had taken a dram or two and a lager after each and were feeling a bit of the melancholy and the nostalgia. I held you tight and the chill left us both. I was concerned for you were fat with child and I always tucked you up and made you wear the scarves you hated. You loved to have you neck loose and open. You told me, Michael, how are ye gonna kiss me neck with it wrapped like a fishwife. You were always the freer of we two. I, the serious writer, you the painter of light. You study to much, Michael, you are like an old man and ye my age. You my, dove of Ireland, had the hair of the Gaelic and the eyes of night. I could look into them when we were talking and all words would disapper. All matter would dissapate. Michael you are too smart. It is not healthy to use big words amongst our people so when we return to the mother land, in Ireland, please speak plain to our folks. And drink a bit more. That day in America, we had received a package from Grammy. It was a lovely quilt of silk and was festooned with orchids and cross stiched so lovely. When we arrived home, we stoked the fire and had a lovely tea, and you slowly removed your clothing, skin so pale. Your hands were rough from all the work. You always said, Michael, one must be educated for little Sian. He has to be a bright light. He has to be born in the mother country, the County Cork. I always agreed, but my heart would break as I read and wrote all day and night and you cleaned the rich bastard's houses while I sat. Study I did and write I did. Till my eyes were rimmed with blood. My love as you slept some nights, the tears rolled from my eyes for all you would do for me. It was uncanny how you know what I desired. It it were the lovely tea, or a biscuit or stoking the fire a bit. You always knew. As we opened the package from Grammy you begin to prepare for the bed. Which was to slip the flannel on, You could not bare the chill. When you saw the quilt of orchids it warmed you like the Carribean. You tossed off the flannel and commanded me "Hey you, geezer, are ye comin to take me or are ye to old to take care of a young lass starving for ye with your child in her." My bonnie lass, I was beside you before the fiddler bowed another. Beneath the Warmth of the Quilt of Orchids, I rediscovered the spirit of love. It is that when you find the truness of love, you are woven together as cloth. To sepearate would require the ripping of the soul. The spirits abhor that. It is why when love is true, it is rarely seperated by jealousy or chicanery, or the petty differences or the distance. I have been far from you and your heart beating in mine as one. We are woven of the same cloth of the spirit. From the moment we spoke the weaving began. Written by Michael Forbus copyright by same.