A woman, who was here, disappeared.
So it seems.
So it is.
She was here, or how to explain
the burned biscuits,
or the phlox and asters and scent of rain?
I would tell you about her
but I have told you about her
and made wax candles from my foolishness
that flare and die along the sill.
Every night, when a shifting wind
makes me dream, or wakes me from dreams,
in the dark, like a mynah bird,
I tell you I sense her, still.
I would start a church, here where the water well
was witched by her just as I was;
but without her sun-borrowed skin--
without the snow-on-bare-feet burn of her silence--
there is nothing prodigal enough
or spare enough
to roil the pot or rot the bin.
A woman, who was here, disappeared
replaced by a magpie in the black-eyed susans
who tilts and poses
in a broken mirror
saying, "there...oh there there...dear."
_______
Whoa! that snow on bare feet burn, her sun-borrowed skin and witchy ways.......such an absence is a presence one never recovers from, I do believe, having experienced that same phenomenon myself, in my case black fur and whiskers, and an all-knowing eye. Your writing amazes me. Every. Single. Time.
ReplyDeleteGorgeous.
ReplyDeleteSigh.......this is absolutely stunning!!! I love what Sherry said "such an absence is a presence one never recovers from" This certainly does nail that in a way only you could do Shay!
ReplyDeletethe snow-on-bare-feet burn of her silence..
ReplyDeleteA stunning image in a poem full of rich figurative language. Really gorgeous.
"I tell you I sense her still..." Yeah, I gots me one of them, too. Well done!
ReplyDeletebrilliant - absolutely brilliant -
ReplyDeletethe haunting, the transformations, the inevitable marking on skin - because some are of this most chimerical essence - it is their way - and they leave ashes in their wake -
stunning imagery woven in most pointedly astute and acute ways - I particularly loved the last stanza, the magpie in the black-eyed susans - what an ending to this rich poem Shay -
Wooh, this is quite something — the tone, the imagery, and the overall impact is of such a vivacious nature — there is dark matter and some wonderful energy in the parlance of the last line.
ReplyDeleteLove this bit: "but without her sun-borrowed skin--/without the snow-on-bare-feet burn of her silence--/there is nothing prodigal enough/or spare enough/to roil the pot or rot the bin."
One feels your devotions must exceed their object in great value!
ReplyDeleteYour syllables are unerring in their gravity and diffinitiveness, my sister
Ephemeral in every way, Shay. You drew me into the scene effortlessly. The third stanza describing her silence is complete in its perfection.
ReplyDeleteThere’s some fabulous imagery in this poem, Shay! I like the uncertainty of the opening stanza that makes me want to know how the woman disappeared and why, and I love the lines:
ReplyDelete‘Every night, when a shifting wind
makes me dream, or wakes me from dreams,
in the dark, like a mynah bird,
I tell you I sense her, still’
and
‘…the snow-on-bare-feet burn of her silence’.
I love these:
ReplyDelete"I would start a church, here where the water well
was witched by her"
"there is nothing prodigal enough
or spare enough
to roil the pot or rot the bin"
"who tilts and poses
in a broken mirror
saying, 'there...oh there there...dear.'"
I love that she is both ghost and self, both mother and daughter.
Everyone reads things through the prism of their own mind.
DeleteGlorious writing with such a magical quality.
ReplyDeleteThe ghosts of love passed, I know those ghosts well.
ReplyDeleteGrief and ghosts and magpie memory. There, there.
ReplyDelete