Beatitude

The fact that I'm posting again must mean that I have homework to do. Here's something that I posted a piece of a while back but I really like the whole thing now:

Double-headed Canoe

This is how she looked the day

the men harvested the nests and stood knee-deep in the river:

breath in cold gusts,

eyes slits of slate,

hands to her heart.

Thick, alluvial mud slid between toes

and she saw the sky lit with lightning;

bones like a skeleton-leaf though the water.

Summer passed that year without ritual.

I read how a voice falters,

how words flutter and fade.

Hers fills every crevice;

my hands wrap around echoes,

tiny bones grasping for age and wisdom.

The passing to and fro of grief, like the ocean's swell,

is the movement of logic and mystery;

sinking into pores as to sand,

the motion of memory.

Clasping water sounds,

(the markings of shells)

she dug her heels into earth and opened her palms;

seeds catching the breeze.

No dirt under nails,

no thumb to mark a spot, a hope, a prayer.

We are the folding, the unfolding.