when you wore skin made from shadows,
i wrote down your every breath
and saved them on the sanctuary of my tongue.
i spoke you to the morning glory blooms
so that your sadness would be beautiful, and temporary.
i spoke you into willow bark
and kept my fever in another language, privately.
in the time of my wicker bones,
in that year when i broke and burned,
dispersing myself and then coming home
to my new name,
i was sure of your constancy.
i need more eyes, so i can see the reason why you weren't.
a gift of pain makes it easy to find my heart--
it is that badly balanced wing, in the center of me, spread in foolish display.
in the time of the eclipse,
i saw a double shadow that i imagined might be us.
now, you are more beautiful than ever,
but not mine, and lost to the language of those darker days.
This is your idea of stuck? I'm just going to meander off now . . . muttering impolite things and tearing my hair.
ReplyDeletei like this line: a gift of pain makes it easy to find my heart--
ReplyDeleteThis was just the usual Fireblossom gorgeousness and echoing yearning for me, always resonant and always ringing that bell, but then, when I got to the wicker bones, I truly felt it shift into another dimension...a fine and reverberant music in this one, Shay.
ReplyDeleteAlways.
ReplyDeleteOK, I read this and tears came. I could tell you which parts I loved most but instead I want to say, "Lord, I wish I could write like you."
ReplyDeleteso busy i dont have blog visit time but i do pop over here to read every day even tho i dont always leave a comment .. your writing is my oasis
ReplyDeleteThat third stanza tells a story all its own. Mesmerizing.
ReplyDeleteI have to say I agree with Mama Zen. I read your comment on her poem, and then--a day later (somehow I missed it) I'm finally reading yours.
ReplyDeleteThis was the rut you were in? If this was a rut--the result of you getting stuck--I would be literally blown away by something from you that came easily and something that you considered a success.
Three words I especially liked in this one.
"...but not mine." That says volumes.
Some pain is nigh on impossible to put into words but you have done so here with that blend of beauty and heartache which twists the blade in every reader's memory of personal loss.
ReplyDelete"wicker bones" - just those two words alone - together - made this poem amazing, Shay.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful poem, especially that final stanza.
ReplyDeletePat
Critter Alley
all, and especially the fourth stanza... ~ M
ReplyDelete