when sharp reach pangs
so long for holding & what
in need of her lost, where
soft grief trills
over low branch, see her
count our cost, leaf
by fallen why
and now
pause––
swamp sparrow
mid-quake
Tag: reach
the extent of humility
one view
It has something to do with the obligation to reach after truth while finding even the arc of this strain forever reflected back to you across the length of a perpetual mirror, labeled false witness.
Dropping Notes
Rain song
After that drought when rain into dust arrowed murmur of song, new prayers puddled at our feet.
Wink
Witness standing
Stars throb against the rim of what I see, and my reaching hands hold like waving a signal to the departed, We’re over here! Come join!
And in their winking response I glimpse the humor of their restraint before my limits. I always think the thing to bear is longing and never consider arrival, or the unspoken answer to the questions I’ve begged.
And where do you think we’ve gone off to? And which of us is missing, now?
Grace
Approaching.
When the saints go silent, and the church doors are shut,
and the hum soaks up your hearing and the minutes
you meant for keeping spill a mess at your feet,
as the engine grinds another skull––
When something floats a hand from the hollows
of the day’s drift, may you reach for it.
Skyfall
Driving home.
Grit over teeth, ash of last trees on concrete and I remember shade, limbs reaching and how the reach itself was still good and the want had yet to creep its vining hold and too far was still an abstract. It’s all moon tonight, all tides, and I’m reminded back to your last question, the one about where I went. The way I am still there but not with an answer. It’s a big yellow face, less definition than some and yet the humor of it shines through, demanding at least a wry twist of the lips even at this edge. Hello, Moon, and Goodnight and Good Luck and when my daughter was born the nurse said, she can smell you better than she sees.
Sound Painting
Holding beyond reach.
Near the end, you explained that something strange was happening. You had grown accustomed to a powerful presence. One day, without explanation, it left. What followed had more force but no face. You called it sound.
Later, people wondered if you were letting go or just beginning something new. But even when a body means to hold, so much of what happens slips through.
Before you left, you painted reminders. You pulled us into its rough color. You said, listen.
***
Inspired by the sound paintings of Anne Truitt.