My certain marriage to the earth was sundered.
The sky’s fabric thundered, rent in the instant
Light broke through to spill the whole world
I was plucked up, furnace blasted and dropped.
Bereft and broken, strangers bore me away.
I stood in the bleak gateway with an anger-heavy stick.
We should live in threat’s thrall?
They paced this way and that, bared teeth, blood wet
Growled with death’s gurgle.
I felt their fear and of a sudden sullen joy knew my power over them.
Whispered, “skulls crack” and scattered them.
We picked from the world’s gardens, sharp citrus, smoking
cloves, fierce peppers, sweet fruits, tender roots, oils, creams.
Drank wine from maidens’ mouths and lounged on perfumed
cushions caressed by the summer breeze at the lake’s side.
Or hunger’s claw gutted us with pain from anus to gaping lips.
A barren land pulling us down, ravening for our sand-raw
flapping skin and hollow faces.
I know one who was mother at birth’s seeding,
Lover in youth’s harvest,
Friend in the fallow season
Whose befriending friends me with the world.
I have known the place where all windows open into empty rooms
And the wind smells of salt.
I have attended birth’s miracle,
Known children’s kindness and cruelty,
Young life’s seasoning to maturity,
Talked to age’s wisdom and doting confusion
And held a stricken widow’s shuddering in my arms.
Life’s stream has carved my valley deep in its search for the sea
While the gift of rain still falls,
I will cradle its waters thankfully.
