She usually greatly disliked photos of herself – possibly becauss her youngest enjoyed catching her in extreme, playful expressions where her dimensions would become greatly distorted.
But her nervous tension over the subject diminished when she thought of the prospect of his features also being squished-up happy alongside her.
In fact, the thought made her laugh and smile.
We are innocent
Like children again
In the Garden of Eden
Athena Stairs, October 25, 2025
Is it wrong
Or ignoble
For me to ask
For our bliss
Am I a whore
Mere chattel
To own desire
For your kiss
In all the realms
Of kingdoms
No greater knight
Ensued
So why my Heart
My True love
Would I not
Give it all
To you?
—-
Elden court lyre with woodland melodies.
(Please contact me for permissions)
By Athena Stairs, October 25, 2025
That man loves me
For once it’s real
That man loves me
With a heart of steel
You never know they’d say
With a jeer unconcealed
But that man’s worth
Is beyond repeal
And if you say
We haven’t got a chance
If you’d argue
Our circumstance
Well then friends you
Haven’t learned a thing
Of what makes a woman Queen
And a Man her King
—
Elden sass upon verdant grass melodies
(Please contact me for permissions)
As she turned to leave because she had to keep attending to her fragile realities, he paused her with a quick encircling of her wrist with his elegant fingers.
“Don’t go…
Stay.
I’ll take care of you…
I’ll take care of everything.”
(Title of multiple meanings)
It has always been said that dark and light can find a true balance.
“How to believe in love as real or worthy?
It doesn’t need society’s approval to be valid – only consent between two mature people.”
“A dream we share.”
—
(Content of multiple meanings)
“Perhaps I am entering some kind of acceleration effects on certain – and maybe many – levels.
For so long, I was just swollen and puffy no matter how I worked to reconnect and regain tonal tension.
But playing out the idea that one day it can all click, this might be shifting.”
Dr. Ethan Sperry, Artistic Director
Lisa Riffel, Assistant Conductor & Choir Manager
Naomi LaViolette, Accompanist
David Peterson, Producer & Editor
Stars
Music: Ēriks Ešenvalds
Lyrics: Sara Teasdale
Alone in the night
On a dark hill
With pines around me
Spicy and still
And a heaven full of stars
Over my head
White and topaz
And misty red;
Myriads with beating
Hearts of fire
The aeons
Cannot vex or tire;
Up the dome of heaven
Like a great hill
I watch them marching
Stately and still
And I know that I
Am honored to be
Witness
Of so much majesty
She’d been fighting off the crone since the moment she’d been abandoned in her fourties.
It had jeered at her in stark contrast to her youth’s vitality, attempting to hard-interfere with her plans to remarry.
Then all of that fell apart and the accident pushed her hard onto another track – which she’d been striving toward, anyway.
But as she applied makeup to her war-torn fascial contours and saw how the ravages of pain’s suffering tried to mold and reshape her to their designations, a peace began calming.
Maybe that bitch had had her reasons.
Maybe she’d been trying to ensure she’d meet the right man, in the right season.
Could be nothing
Could be everything
—
(Title of multiple meanings)
She did have that same phone meeting, tomorrow…
A very good man to lead and help support her positively, for she would give him what he needed, in return.
“You could have my late to earlies, for a start.”
If he had cast his net a little wider, he would have found her.
She couldn’t try until that eve because she had to meet with others.
She didn’t know how she knew, but she began sometimes to be able to feel where the notes should next go on the piano as she learned to sing vocals.
They were just two people who loved and wanted each other.
For they were both so ameanable that no stone need be left unturned, and all could be understood – and forgiven.
—
(Title of multiple meanings)
They had much to unpack, together.
System resetting
Lacking ability to
Escape inevitable
Pleasure bursting
Tolerance limits
A form of bliss
She asked him to walk a few paces away and then come back again, whereupon she cheekily sighed and stated, “You’ll do.”
And then, he grabbed her with a warning, possessive growl to their mutual laughter.
But she wanted was to hold him in her arms and give him everything.
His lover’s eyes
Heavy-lidded in
Shy submission
& That knowing
Smile to swoon
A million hearts
Broke her in
A moment
Enraptured
“Why’d you choose me out of everybody else?” she asked him, curiously.
“Because I calculated the algorythm – and you fit it to a ‘T,'” he reassured her.
“Is that right?” she challenged, playfully.
“Oh, Baby,” he moved in closer to take her hands and look sraight into her eyes, “You have no idea how ‘right’ it’s gonna be.”
“I saw the movie ‘Barbie’ right before my accident – and had cried, hoping that I’d get my chance to feel young and alive again.”
“Get up, get some caffeine, and get physically busy.”
—
(Title of multiple meanings)
Candid Corvid Productions 