POETRY | SHE, FOR VIDA

5:11pm.

A poem for my friend, my sister, found family, and fellow poet.

To Vida, with the greatest love. Today on her birthday, and always.

Ask me what she is like,

And I will tell you, girl she is the sun itself.

Dream in a fearless dress on your doorstep,

She is golden without apology.

Fresh as lightning, she strikes

At the impossible, a heart-lush smile

with wisdom’s spear stood firm beside;

It would not shock me

If she pulled the whole sky from her purse

In pursuit of her keys.

Her kindness is a sea cliff fortress,

Warm fires lit sturdy within, with truth

as the meanness of other worlds

Breaks upon her rocks.

Ask me how my friend loves and

Sister, I will tell you of an endless well,

She has worked - hard - to dig

with her own sure hands.

She is a feat of emotional engineering.

A Boudicca built to meet the sky

And nary a low bar in sight,

She bears her taken name like

A crown she has earned

and carved, to fit,

In the dust and blood arena of living.

Ask me.

Ask me the sound of the voice of my friend,

And I would tell you she is

the breath before battle and

The cry that stirs;

The voice of where the deep things dwell.

I would tell you she is the storm

And the tea cup,

Not served to impress

But served to undress the world of

Its most pointless armour, that together,

two souls might break bread

And steep their conversation in compassion.

Ask me.

God, but ask me about my friend,

And I will tell you -

Love, she is the world,

She is mountains and rivers

and the song of all Earth’s longings,

in fabulous tan wedges getting cocktails

On a Sunday afternoon.

Lioness with jungle dirt beneath her nails.

Ask me, friend,   

And I will tell you -

I’d follow you anywhere.

                                      © Erin Brown 2025