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1. 

   Alison Jennings on November 25, 2019 at 2:25 AM

   The Red Queen (Elegy for Judith Roche)

   Your life wasn’t easy, filled with depths and heights,
   but the poems you scattered lined our pathways like
   crushed poppies, releasing a resin to soothe our pain.

   James Hillman taught you the Soul dives deep, inside
   the molten core, while Spirit’s like a rocket’s red glare.

   Poetry was your form of spiritual practice, diving
   and soaring to find the balance of longing and hope.

   At the bright red stop sign of reality, you clapped
   those ruby slippers and raced off, like a fire truck,
   to rust-shaded Mars, or, if held by gravity and duty,
   to Uluru in Australia’s fiery desert, just to escape
   into the longer wavelengths of a cardinal sunset.

   Drawn by heated visions of desire, you descended
   into Hades’ realm, but spurned the pomegranate.
   Returning, you followed your heart, throwing
   caution into that red wheelbarrow, where icebox
   plums lie underneath a mound of scarlet berries.

   Spiritually naked, you got sunburned and delirious,
   but it didn’t matter, since that way led to answers.

   Crowing like a rooster, you became the Red Queen
   in Wonderland, dancing madly in a lobster quadrille,
   requesting that all roses be painted your special hue.

   During this visit, the Cook baked you a cake,
   with cayenne, redcurrants, and cranberry icing.

   Finally, it was time to go – entering an antique
   red phone box, morphing into Wonder Woman,
   with tomato-colored boots and the Lasso of Truth,
   you’ve left behind your poems to guide us forward.

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