We are old,
the stars in us
are ready to emerge
and merge again;
it took the last leaf,
the last slamming of the door,
last putting on of shredded shoes,
the faded purple hat,
the coat we’d worn
while others were in something new,
the dreaded stand before the glass:
to make us speak of acquiescence.
Bones lately pinned with thorns,
confirm the silence on other lips,
those lips that never told a lie.
All right then. We’ll go.
The hinges of this old tin box twist off.
The lid falls flat,
reveals the possibility we feared:
a sky too empty and too full.
Am I, and you beside me,
to fall open to this open sky?
be lost among those shining rocks,
those stars that stare?
Lit rocks? Exploding gas?
Photons as emperors of clouds that hide
but can’t escape? But I, you,
have been so protected,
so nurtured into expectation
of what it means.
We find ourselves exposed,
it’s too strange too new, a dreadful error.
No. Listen.
Honey, listen to me,
it’s you that’s new, remade,
your bones release you to what is old,
reliable, beautiful, well lit.
Honey,
listen to me, stand close,
that pond is what you needed
to learn in, a school for this.
This is where you are intended.
There you are! You’re beautiful and ready!
Now go. Go!
She stood until the tiny forms
were lost upon the welcoming night,
a darkness that would soon be coming dawn.
Great Nature as Sophia,
with so many spitting in her face,
humans crowding out her place,
well knew her power over all its race.
It was the mysteries she could coax
but never understand,
that kept her moving everywhere,
to love the smallest, the mystery near at hand.