MESSENGERS

I look back upon you,
(child who made me what I am today)—
skein of potentiality—unwound thread of redeeming choices.
How could I have known my journey
would be all the longer with no end in sight?

Nights up alone as a youth, I read by candlelight
secret books—read how lives were relinquished all at once,
one life for another, no matter what the cost.
In a dream about Auschwitz, Edith Stein tells me not to grow faint—
not be swayed by anything on either side of the long boardwalk.
—“Be relentless,” she says—“Keep walking.”
She holds out her hand. In her open palm: a giant moth.
I hold my breath—
touch a trembling wing. The moth flies off.

Clearly, I am not alone.

A long river winds toward the sea.
Indivisible, the hidden life of water—
naturalness
of coral, rock, anemone.
Ceaselessly earthworms tunnel black soil—
ancient guardians of earth
no night can surprise with darkness.

Cedar waxwings swirl en masse in a late fall sky,
land on the Norway maple outside my bedroom window.
Startling cries command attention.
I look back: books for a young girl’s greening self—
winding river of dreams (water’s tremulous murmur),
earthworms, birds, and solitary trees.
Boundaries overlap in swirling hours.
All are a part of me—
I carry them in my heart.


Published in: The Penmen Review, 2016