song in my hair

I pull it back; there's a song in my hair, of deep-ringing bells as in the Spanish missions I visited in childhood. Directed by a faux-friar, I hand-dipped candles in the courtyard, that burned with the scent of a simpler life, before the tallow soap bubbles burst, leaving me less clean. What remains of the golden crop that glowed Indian-corn-kernel red under California sun? A freshly shorn wayward sheep, Our Lady of Perpetual Headaches.

-- Copyright 2007 Maddie Ruud

"Action 1" is a project, born Jan 31, 2007, involving the free distribution of original poetry. I give permission to forward this message as a whole, unaltered, via email, but reserve the rights of publication, web and print.