I'll wait for the day
When I have you
In my arms and
Hear my favorite song
In your chest again.

not my mother, but
those before
were teachers of stillness—
to choose it, feel whole in it
bow to it
and wait…

across oceans
my mothers wrote their stories with pencil,
or fingers in thin air
words carried, indelibly
over miles and mountains
in strands and time—

waiting to be found

I see them sometimes
caught in a turning breeze
suspended in Fall colours

clinging to another mother’s web

I feel their warmth in the weak winter sun
more persistent now
following the horizon

I hear them in my dreams, the anguished ones
lead-heavy and fallen
overgrown with raveled life
and rusted

On my tongue melting like honeycake

Rising in wood fire
and spring soil

they are my words now
to tend to, crystalline
and holy

I wait
and i sing

when you are quiet for long enough that the squirrel thinks you are part of the earth.
when you have whole-heartedly experienced the death of a worm.
when you spend $6 on a stone to bring the luck you don't believe in.
when the zinnias turn indigo and the indigo withers to dust.
when you begin to envy the worm.
when you don't want to bore the trees with your problems so you sit in silence.
when you listen to love songs and pretend to understand.
when you watch an oak leaf drifting in the current but it's actually you drifting and it will only take one red currant to be happy.
when it becomes painful to dream.
when 4.568 billion years doesn't seem so long but how is it only 1 o'clock?
when you wish you could be a comb jelly and float transparent along the black depths.
when you feel the earth suspended in nothingness.
when you can feels yourself suspended in nothingness.
you must wait.

It hurts so much.

How could your words
Be so cruel,
Yet I still wait for it?

How can I love you
This much
When you can unlove me
Just like that?

The smell of butter, the taste of flour,
Children will mutter for half an hour,
Until everyone's food arrives,
Mouths full and away with the cries,
Of chattering people and loud music,
Eating is the only language fluent.

Should I give up
on a chance that cannot be
To our story
that never even began
Am I just being petty?
We have not even started yet
Did I just leave the pages unset?
It’s just starting to unfold
Or have I really loss it? I believe
We haven't even given a chance
To our story that only has a page