Night, I (M.A. Reilly, 2008) |
"On starless nights, one can feel like a loose array of limbs and purpose, and seem smaller, limited to what one can touch." ― from Diane Ackerman's "Dawn Light: Dancing with Cranes and Other Ways to Start the Day"
I.
It was time to let go of our house where light fell through familiar windows and each creak of the staircase I knew by heart. It was time to pack away all that could not be carried further. Such cargo weighed too much and I carried it too far. Some truths took greater time to surface. Sea deep. They resided where sunlight did not penetrate. Oceanographers called this the bathypekagic zone. Poets knew it as the midnight zone. I, like every other widow, simply called it the blue-black absence of love.
II.
And yet, I stood
at the open window tonight
where the fall of late light
felt familiar,
memories remained bittersweet,
and the sharp desire to be still
pressed against a need to move.
Grief was a tension
that rose between then and next
leaving me only a slim truth:
Rob was dead and I was not.
Outside the window
a pair of cardinals settled
on the limb of a bare tree
just beyond my reach
and sung to me.
As I listened even the darkness felt warm.
A slim truth and a song... enough for moving forward
ReplyDeleteYes, song and truth.
DeleteI enjoy your posts, even when they are sad, for the way they encapsulate moments and feelings through words and art, and in this case song. Keep singing your song...it's beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Barbara!
Delete