Striking off
the major track
to the small black road
tangent to her house
he saw a car approach,
and she was driving,
the children that
she bore close beside her,
quiet in their pride.
Midwinter had a
warming grip
upon the dirt,
though the wind broke
cold upon the skin,
first snowmelt fusing
with the trace stones
and moss upon the space
wherein they paused.
Giving way –
the slowing pace –
the waves –
the windows
bravely falling
for their faces
and their voices.
Snow steaming
from the tires,
her bobbed hair silver
in the light,
her teeth gleaming
in bright banter,
tender and relaxed
in unexpected meeting,
(for both were headed
elsewhere on that day)
there was nothing
he’d forget,
and nothing
she’d remember.
Her Hebraic name is
thought by scholars
of that faded speech to mean
Female Friend or Lady.
It must be so,
for she is easy with her
beauty’s silent truth,
and girded by
her graceful form –
her name is Ruth.
Lady
