βλέπω*

Hope flickers in gathering darkness.
War, sickness, death, poverty, loss:
we must suffer them all again.
The dark heart of being
wears the weary soul.
The common world of pain,
a place we all know best.
Yet even as night falls,
a new morning of light beckons.
Hope flickers but does not falter.

Be our courage
When life is frightening,

Be our strength
When we are weak.

Be our peace
When everything crumbles,

Be our portion
When we are empty.

Be our fortress
When flood waters rise,

Be our song
When our vision dies,

Be starvation
When life is a feast,

Be our way,
Our truth, and our life.

I slash open
the fine lines
of my veins
to let in the
starry breath
            of night
fresh and fiery
as a snap of chaos
left out
in the firmament
                   to chill,
the frigid air
       weaving an
icy filigree
upon the black
cooling my blood
soothing the
night creatures
        that swerve and sway
beneath my skin
restless as tiny demons
always locked away,
                           within
They emerge from
their hibernation
into the gelid
crackle of air,
zipping over the
sheens of ice floes
unstopped by sudden
change in climate
frozen moss between
                      their claws, their toes
In this icicle-dipped
troposphere  
a burning
descends upon
        my tastebuds
just as if
you have
       kissed me
the ebbs
    of time seemingly  
    bringing you closer
    an energetic wrapping
       up and through
                  my being
like the breathiest of
polar mist
and as I gaze up
    at the tiny
      wisps of light,    
lustrous as the
     full moon scattered,
the astral plane
whirrs deep within me
stirring up my womb
ploughing the fields
                   of my mind
creating riverflow
from icy drought
soothing the
cuts and fissures
and rocky edges
of my aching
prophetess
                heart
Fragile yet callused,
toughened with time
as it beats
beneath the ice
soft as the inside of
a wounded animal
blessed by its hunters
for making itself a gift
to the tribe
apparently
      your warrior's
                    palm alone
                        can melt it
                       down
and sometimes,
          as I get
lost inside deeply
wild tundras,
suddenly
I'm
  found

She captures autumn
in a jar
reads the moon's straying
through leaf and branch

Always in love
with love
and always reeling
from the loss

What wave tossed this refugee
ashore?
What alignment
of stars and planets
of uncountable galaxies
brought this woman
to this world and not another?

A simple truth will tell.
The moon at high tide
hides beneath her skirts.
A slight disturbance
in the silken fabric
of space and time
and all is lost
all is born.

I hold my hands out
palms up
in prayer and thanks
every day
to mark the blessing
to place a peg
in the whole.

Given to all
denied to none
and mysterious to most

Life pours out of
a hole in the sea
leaves nothing
and everything
to chance.

This blessed world.