Can You Hear Me Now

Hapy, the ancient god of the Nile, depicted at Dendera with Cleopatra, is typically shown with breasts – symbolism that demonstrated how the life-giving gifts of Egypt’s river artery come only when the power of both female and male was combined.

Bettany Hughes

Variation One

I can still recall a reoccurring dream I had around the age of four or five. The dream involved a beautiful woman in a billowing skirt who magically transforms herself into the sun. The details of the dream are long gone, but I remember a softness to her face and a swell in her chest that made me feel safe, welcomed and comfortable.

The transformation from a woman to the roundness and warmth of the sun is quite interesting and indicates that my childish mind had already developed a connection between women, power, and their chests. I remember lying in bed hoping to have that dream again and was sad when it eventually drifted away.

Years later, I am thankful that some pieces still remain in my conscious mind. Very few dreams from that age have survived for so long.

Variation Two

My mother tells me that she wanted to breastfeed me, but me being a child born in the fifties, that was not easy for a woman to do. Not only were there social stigmas, but the medical world was less than supportive of her wishes. Shortly after a couple of unsuccessful attempts, the nurses brought out a bottle of formula and I quickly latched on to the less-challenging rubber nipple.

Although I wish that Mom had persevered, I don’t fault her for giving in. I was born very early in the morning and imagine that she was totally exhausted. Chances are that she was drugged up since they commonly did that to many women in the delivery room. She may have welcomed the bottle after all that.

Variation Three

Since the dawn of humankind, the female breast has been worshiped, written about, and celebrated. Artists from prehistoric cave painters to the Renaissance masters to the post modernists have attempted to capture its beauty on walls, canvas, film, and in stone. Other than the face, no other part of a woman has seen such reverent attention. It would be impossible to enter an art museum in any part of the world and not find homage to the female breast.

Sadly, there is a dark side and the pseudo celebration of breasts has also been a form of exploitation. Like anything in life that is good and worthy, there are people who want to pervert that good to their own benefit. Rivers are polluted, condominiums and high-rise hotels overcrowd fragile shorelines, great art is turned into refrigerator magnets, and breasts are used to sell cars, alcohol, and cigarettes.

Variation Four

Anyone who has paid even the slightest attention to this blog knows that I mix poetry into my prose. It doesn’t matter if my poetic skills are at best adequate. I require a creative outlet that isn’t tied to sentences wrapped up in paragraphs. Poetry allows me to tap into thoughts and feelings that prose can’t, or won’t, reach. It’s a sanctuary from my left brain and all its overblown pontification.

Over the years, I self-published four books of poetry (my two favorites can be found here and here). They are all different and yet they revolve around many of the same themes. The subtitle of my second book was “More poems about food, sex, and the weather,” and while that isn’t exactly true, it’s more true than I care to admit.

What is absolutely true is that I have not been not shy about respectfully celebrating (in obvious and somewhat veiled ways) the female breast in much of my unstructured verse. Like the child Andrew and my dream, I still find comfort in being in that place of warmth and adoration. The sun woman may have faded away from my sleep a long time ago, but her light still shines down on me.

The following are a few of my favorite breast-homage poems. I hope you find them respectful, thoughtful, and playful. Anything else is beyond my intention.

Thank you for reading.

Simple Because She is Able

Pulling back the curtains to a late April frost
fractured light through spiderweb panes
like a dream painted sky shimmering white

Too many tasks between wakeful and sleeping
too many steps to walk
too many miles to drive and words to speak

But the sleepy eyed woman stretches and yawns
rolls to her side
and bares her naked breasts proudly
simply because she is able

Cleavage

The space between
a silent bridge
like white space between the notes
I am drawn to the music
the rhythm
the passion of nothingness and empty space

A peaceful sanctuary
calling me back
time after time

Long Division

It’s the silence that connects word to word
a rest between two quarter tones
rising up to heaven before falling back to earth

The tilling of the soil
rich and fertile
a plow line from heart to mind

It’s the magic that is essentially nothing
yet more than two halves alone

Being Beautiful Just For You

The poet
musician
the lover
the dreamer of splendor and light

Standing at the water’s edge
watching the rise and fall of ocean waves
crashing against buoyant, sonorous breasts and tanned pink skin
kissed by wind, sun, and starfish nipples
being beautiful just for you

Whitman’s Walk

I am he who walks the night
through dreams and half-held slumber
and mine is the warmth that cups your breasts
with hushed and unseen hands

There but not
the eyes that exalt you are mine
the lips that meet your lips are mine
the body that envelops you is mine

Sweet jasmine flower
rich and fertile earth
wind and sand and water
the make believe of silence and shadows

Open the door and welcome me
for I am your midnight lover

Take This Day and Own It

Draw the curtains back to let in the light
throw back the blankets and sheets
breathe deeply the cool morning air
hold it
warm it
send it out again
stretch your fingers long and slender
unwind and unfurl

Bare breasted woman awakens
her nipples taut from the unexpected chill
fold your soul into the dawn
take this day and own it

Muscle Memory

How hands would come together so naturally
as buttons through their mated holes
two arms into waiting sleeves
how a finger would trace from breast to stomach
before making the journey back again
how eyes caught sight and held firmly
like a landscape through a camera’s lens

The physical and the imagined
the solid and dreamed
these are the memories that linger
long after the sensations have passed