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Five Poems, a Daughter's Departure

From the upcoming book Sacred Sorrow
In memory of my daugher Aura, and her sudden passing on Sept 20th, 1997.

Poem One

Six Months After
3/20/98

I broke the pond
  with a stick
  through ice
at the edge.

I was making a place
  for your sweet ashes
  to gently dissolve
  into elements
  you so loved.

I sprinkled your bits
  of bone and teeth
  and traces of heart
  and all into magnified
  pebbles, clear in the cold
  and horrified halted
  to see your remains
  float there unintegrated
  sinking slightly
  not at all dissolving.

I poked at the ice
  a bit there now here
  and sprinkled more.
  A piece of you stuck
  to a tiny branch and

I reached
  to brush you off
  but stopped 
  to hear you say
  how cool it was
  to rest like a bud
  barely above water
  on an icy first day
  of spring after death.

 

 

Poem Two

Daughter
10/97

It does not matter that the cave
           clenched and collapsed
in frantic desire to consume you

Or even that your glorious sphere
            vividly enveloped those
who passed even your periphery.

All I know is the wrenching
             radiant grief
The cord swiftly cut while pulsing.

And I dream:
            A mother stands holding
            her infant wrapped
            to her chest so perfect
            a great knife plunges
            into the heart of the child
            then shudders swiftly
            through to the baby's body
            into mine, both hearts pierced.

 

 

Poem Three

Mourning
10/97

When weeping starts, demons
    release their hold so I feel
       you become more real.

I confuse you with a lover
   or rather now always
 love mourning as mother.

When darkness attacks thinking
  becomes confused and I lose
you to my own clinging madness.
  When I think I can do this alone
I know I am right but don't want
  to be and know I am wrong 

to presume I need no one but faith.
  When I miss you so purely 
I know you're not gone except I'll 
  never observe that sweet curve
in your shoulder or hold the large
  blueness of your eyes into mine

or feel our daughter-mother chests 
press each other in unselfconscious
tenderness. I'm so lonely without you
      when I think you are gone
   I turn gray and into cardboard.

 

 

Poem Four

Tucson
4/95

Prickly hillsides, loose stony ledges
not falling. Praises to Ra who catches
my Persephone -- teaches her to fly.

Unnameable peak -- wild west is Egypt,
both paths the same. Waiting alone 
for multi-layered subtleties, simmery 
sun setting as tourists scurry uphill 
for quick shots of orange on black
jagged pyramids against thick blue.

Day is near-night; spirits descend,
crowds disappear. And somewhere
in the expanse, a lone drummer.

 

 

Poem Five

Persephone
6/93

        Wrapped in the brown
cloak of Demeter
         no one sees I have no frame --
         frigid winter
         my only season.
She who brought light
becomes barren stumbling
dazed by brambles piercing.

"It becomes so late," I say.
"Will you come home now?"

        At last a delicate
touch and there stands Persephone radiant --
       transformed. "Mother,"
she whispers (and my body returns).
"I never left, ma. It was you who could
       not follow," her voice shimmering of dew.

She will dissolve
    in sun's heat
    and I will feel
moisture on my lips
        again.

 

 

Nearly Ten Years After

(topic given while leading a retreat)

                              
Heritage
2/17/07

I am of the snows
Sun through limbs
Squirrels hiding in
months of languid
protection while foxes
dart toward frozen
ponds and icicles form.

I am of the winds
Eerie in ferocity
or gentle in melancholy
my arms about 
souls as invisible wings
tucked into safety
beneath comforters of light.

Give the season, I will tell
from whence my home.
Show a creature and you
shall see from whom I came.