Beneath the Faceted Life (Poem)

I was not there,
but I will record what she told me,
the simple story this old lady whispered to me in a raspy voice,
while passing through a dusty marketplace
on her way to see an old friend.

Her face, wrinkled like cracked seashells,
eyes like garnet stone,
and red like a bull's slow blood in a Spanish plaza,
hooked me into her story,
and wouldn't let me go.

Life according to her is simple,
it can be told in small sentences,
tiny powerful phrases,
snippets beneath what others face,
their complex stories unraveling like stone ribbons.

She told me unhappiness is ambitious,
that a twisted circle can break where it should be joined,
that I must step behind the creative curtain,
where titles without authors are lost,
and a poet scrambles and skitters under a mountain's carapace.

I responded like a weak gust of wind,
"This is not as simple as you state," crone.
"I cannot build simple stories
beneath this faceted life.
Every angle glints and winks a different way.
Every twist and turn leads to new stories.
Every cut and polishing changes the plot,
like a shoal of shimmering fish."

She sat hushed for a moment,
earth brown shawls, tattered coat blending in with the dust,
our tent humming in the wind.
She stared at me with eyes far less than sated,
licking lips colored by the flickering shadow cast by our kerosene lamp.

I had walked five paces before she called me back.

(To be continued...)