Hello again.  I have been told that yesterday people were not able to comment.  I have attempted to correct that.  Please let me know if you try to comment but can't.  Okay here is my thought for the day.  This is a poem that became one of my favorites several years ago.  I have shared it previously, but wanted to in this format.  The poem was shared with a group of women I was a part of led by a woman, Josephine Jones, a writer and wonder, who now lives in Colorado.  Anyway, the poem was the beginning of a writing group called the Heroine's Journey.  Here it is and I hope I am not violating some copyright or other type of law that will land me in jail without any gingerbread...

House of Changes by Jeni Couzyn

My body is a wide house

A commune

Of bickering women, hearing

their own breathing

denying each other.

Nearest the door

ready in her black leather

is Vulnerable. She lives in the hall

her face painted with care

her black boots reaching her crotch

her black hair shining

her skin milky and soft as butter.

If you should ring the doorbell

she would answer

and a wound would open across her eyes

as she touched your hand.

On the stairs, glossy and determined

is Mindful. She's the boss, handing out

Punishments and rations and examination

papers with precise

justice.  She keeps her perceptions in a huge

album under her arm

her debts in the garden with the weedkill

friends in card-index

on the windowsill of the sitting room

and a tape-recording of the world

on earphones

which she plays to herself over and over

assessing her life

writing summaries.

In the kitchen is Commendable.

The only lady in the house who

dresses in florals

she is always busy, always doing something

for someone she had a lot of friends. Her hands are quick and

cunning as blackbirds her pantry is stuffed with loaves and fishes

she knows the times of trains

and mends fuses and makes 

a lot of noise with the vacuum cleaner.

In her linen cupboard, newly-ironed and neatly

folded, she keeps her resentments like

wedding presents-each week

takes them out for counting not to

lose any but would never think of

using any being a lady.

Upstairs in a white room is

my favorite. She is Equivocal

has no flesh on her bones

that are changeable as yarrow stalks.

She hears her green plants talking

watches the bad dreams under the world

unfolding

spends her days and night

arranging her symbols

never sleeps

never eats hamburgers

never lets anyone into her room

never asks for anything.

In the basement is Harmful.

She is the keeper of weapons

the watchdog. Keeps intruders at bay

but the others keep her

locked up in the daytime and when she escapes

she comes out screaming

smoke streaming from her nostrils

flames on her tongue

razor blades for fingernails

skewers for eyes.

I am Imminent

live out in the street

watching them. I lodge myself in other people's

heads with a sleeping bag

strapped to my back.

One day I'll perhaps get to like them enough

those rough, truthful women

to move in.  One by one

I'm making friends with them all

unobstrusively, slow and steady

slow and steady