You have entranced me
With that look in your eye
It's something wild and mysterious,
Something just beyond my reach.
I don't understand you,
When you assert your authority
And I react, desperate,
With an attempt at your language -
This seems to propel us further,
Horns locked,
Into a spiral of non-communication
As if I've given in
And you've won the battle.

You have bewitched me
With your silent smile, and that
Shrug of the shoulders
'Gospodi, Gospodi!' you say,
Provoking,
Awaiting my English response,
But I am having my own
Inner battle -
My irrationality
Has once before got the better of me,
But I can't allow it again
So calm returns,
And I know that in time we will learn
To get on.

You have captured me alive,
Sasha - you are only five.

I'm caught inside a wonderful snowstorm
I have never seen anything
More beautiful. But I am enclosed
In the pounding, swirling flakes
Transporting my goldfish-bowl view
Into a magical yet menacing isolation.
For just a moment I am like
The goldfish, pausing in that
Familiar, circular journey, suddenly
Face to face
With the relentless unfolding
Of time outside. At once
Confronted by the reality
Of my glass confinement
And the illusion of my watery world.

Naomi Rudoe