The Way He Looked At Me
By La Belle Rouge


I remember the way he first looked at me
in a vineyard where bright butterflies played.
My hair fallen, disheveled around shoulders
vulnerably bared to the hot midsummer light.
He was a new sun, burning tender white skin
under dark searing heat of his fiery eyes.
Was I his victim, his prey or his predator?
He sketched my likeness on stretched canvas
and with soft sable brushes dripping nature
painted it red shades, tones of gold, hues of sex.
His canvas a combination of autumn mornings
and halcyon afternoons when love takes its rest
among firm ripening, purple grapes of opulence
in patient anticipation of wine’s intoxication
to quench all his nights of thwarted desire.


I will never forget the first time eyes met
and two souls embraced across the span
of then and now, here and there, forever.
Antiquity and infinity passed between us
in the space of a miniscule fragment of time.
I knew the artist could paint me any color
and I would be the portrait of love for him.
Flaming hair wind-tousled on bare shoulders
arms open, to welcome him into my world.
Amid orchard rows where we took our fill
of love, lust and all positions between the two.
Eternal flames are never smothered by rain.
Eternal memories are not faded away by time
or destroyed by all that might intervene in eons
since I first looked at him looking at me.


3/11/2008 La Belle Rouge

“Poetry, Love Whispers”


Music "Frist Time Ever I Saw Your Face"