I can hold my daughter’s compassion in firelight
one tiny log at a time
make it last
her ashes falling into my cup
I can hold the weight of the moon in my breath
one porcelain eye on my chest
make me see
her ashes falling into my cup
I can hold my soul in the sinew of both hands
one sacred goddess rising
make her return
as ashes falling into my cup
How much can you swallow before it swallows you back
When the empty is heavier than the sky that he held over his head for losing
to Zeus
to Gods who have no business being Gods
I thought about that today
going back up the stairs to my office after a particularly shitty phone call
Miserable, heavy, hopeless
Holding up the sky on my shoulders, still trying to remember the name of that Titan
Atlas
and suddenly grinning like a Sufi
Remembering none of that
when a fat squirrel, one I’ve seen many times, paused just long enough outside the glass
Reminding me of my Grandpa who died when I was twelve
and solitary balloons still make me believe he is reaching out
that stupid squirrel made me drop the sky
and fall to my knees and laugh
Dead poets line four walls
Fixed eyes, thin skin choking on dust
Indignant, gracious
Quit looking for me here, they say
The best part of living is what you learn alone in the dark when the rest of the world sleeps
All the losing and winning
Brimming and seeping
from pottery shards unearthed in our lost worlds
No man can taste your power like my ancient tongue
The absence of Love is more passionate than the having
Drape my soul over your hip bones
Trail a finger from your hairline to the tip of your nose
Court us both with that storm punishing your window
Lust like a starving god after the you that has no body
Call out your own name
Whimper: Open your eyes beautiful
Grin at the blond strand of hair you lift from my spine in the morning
But just know that was only the beginning…
I’ll walk to the cemetery tonight and find you
like we did in college
when phones were fat with squiggly tails
and I always hoped it was you
I’d start off up the hill above my dorm
soft jeans and sensible shoes
loud, blue parka
nothing at all in my pockets
through ushering pines and rotting wet
the still hour
neither day nor night
down that side street so thick with biology it buzzed
I’d break into the clearing where you’d find me
Take my hand
Smoke with the other
Grin at the moon in her misty wrap
Everyone sleeps so we can breathe, you’d say
We were never sad there
Headstone companions
Pretty names and numbers
We’d talk above their bones
and they’d lean into our campfire voices and sigh
Isn’t it interesting how other animals don’t seem to feel sorry for themselves?
The loss of a child
Starvation
Bitter cold, brutal heat
They simply bow their heads and eat when it’s offered
And how we look so hard within domes and people, that which is offered so baldly in the wild
I wonder
People don’t really climb Everest for the view
God doesn’t want me loved safely behind locked doors
I think he wants us like Szpilman
That gorgeous Jewish pianist who scarcely survived the Warsaw Ghetto in the 1940’s
A desperate Lover of family, strangers
Bewildered with pitched eyebrows
Lame legs, wandering still
So that when we sit at our pianos at last
His drama swells in and out our bodies
like a lighthouse sweeping dark waters for crouching forms,
everyone aching to see and be seen
The TV could be on in the other room
You’d be on your laptop half interested in everything, nothing
Anything but me
Our daughter would be somewhere here; absently, greedily eating illusions
And I’d be dying quietly,
no differently than I am now…
Except that now I get to walk the catacomb like a priestess
reading aloud
with Jack Gilbert in my hands
Rumi
Wendell Berry
Annie Dillard
And think maybe I’ll start a little fire in the backyard tonight with the new moon
I am an ocean
full of dark things that never see light
My body covers the earth
and when the sun bears his touch
I remember how vast I really am
I could spend hours rolling my head side to side
trying to see all of myself
And that’s when you see me and remember yourself too
I am a Queen
A Mother
Reaching for my people
Retreating softly with the night
An abundant solitude
spread upon the dining table of the moon
