Jennifer Faris

Across the landscapes of my soul
this aching weight of loneliness still
stretches and swamps
and rolls over the rills.
It rains down on the hills
like a thick grey fog,
weeping and moaning across the bogs and the moors
of my spirit.
Like a blanket of steel, it wraps, and it holds my heart and my soul.
The world beckons and beams with all its profound
weights of frolic and fun, and yet, wrapped in my shroud
I burrow down,
deeper still,
as if maybe, somehow,
in this cold and grey thickness,
a life can be found.
Oh, why, within these dark iron folds,
do I find a dense comfort, a salve for my soul?
Mysterious voices call out from the clouds-
Even they cannot coax me to enter the crowds.
I examine this swathe where I suffer and breathe
and find buried down deep, where no one can see,
a whispering Purpose,
a mystical mime whose long and cold fingers
with mine intertwine.
Her lips come to my ear, and her ghostly airs sigh
like a breath on the winds of a prayer in the sky.
“You were not ever meant to leave these black folds,
No, instead you must stand with them over your soul
like a velvety cloak,
an inseparable mantle.
You are one of the ones, the reaping has spoken.
You will walk in this world as a visiting token
of a realm that can only be seen by the others
who also are called,
the ones who have suffered.
They now bear, alongside you, this
argentine fate,
this burden of glory,
this holiest weight.
Those who are with you, those wrapped in grey robes
will solemnly nod as soul senses each soul.
These are your people, your god one of sorrow.
Well-acquainted with grief,
you will sojourn together.
Now, stand, sobered sister.
Wear your robes like a queen.
You are one of the chosen.
Go with strength.
You are seen.”