While researching an appropriate totem-muse label for his Ukrainian friend, photographer and model Mariya Andriichuk, the poet encountered the fact that the "Great Gates of Kiev" referenced in Mussourgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" are also commonly known as "The Golden Gates of Kiev". That information, and this poem, sealed her totem.
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You are my golden gates.
Standing tall, but not a wall against desire.
Passion of a thousand years, tears and triumph
laid inside you to draw me into mystery
the history of your love and touch.
I am just a curious onlooker to your past
wanting to cast my lot with futures yet unborn,
warm and deep inside you, finding truth, binding
my life and dreams to the arch of your body
as I enter you to find the splendour of you.
You are my golden gates.
Heroic even if I never stand in your shadow
or lay my hands to the warm stone of your needs,
needs that would feed on all I am and let me record
history in my words, adding to your legend.
William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.