Guest Poet: message in a bottle?

Fellow poet-blogger Wendy Bourke has a clear, distinct voice, her work ranging from light and humorous to poignant and wise—all of it relatable and with vivid details. Thought you might enjoy reading a poem she posted recently at Words and Words and Whatnot, one of her three blogs:

message in a bottle?

there’s a shelf 

near my tub,

piled with baffling mixtures 

of potions and oils,

extracts and elixirs –

to renew  

and restore, 

reinvent and refine: 

olive butter my body 

and  . . . 

mint julep my mind.

there are masks for my eyes  

and cheeks . . . 
chin, neck and nose . . .

and a bottle that offers me: 

strawberry toes.

little gifts, through the years,  

from my dear ones to me  –

selected, and given with thought, lovingly.

a shiny assortment of jars, tubes and bling – 

all, to boost and diminish, 

define, hide and cling.

a magnificent, fine, alchemistic array.

  

though, I wonder:  

what is it, they’re trying to say.

“A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.”  - Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Moral Essays, Volume III:  de Feneficiis.

—copyright Wendy Bourke, 2013; reposted here with permission from author