Dorothy, I Have Seen You Three Times Poem by David McLansky

Weathered face of Chinese Marble
Your eyes burn into my face
Inscrutable with joyful taking.

Blue Ridge Mountain woman
You stand as your brown sap is drying
Inward
Against a wind
On a snow dying hill
Long lived, self-sufficient, and ungiving.

Elegant memory
Graciousness in burgundy velvet
Sensuous in bohemian richness
Helen in the shadow of a living room;
And the clatter, the swimming music,
The eager faces searching for the words
They never know
As you always answer gaily.