A Hundred Falling Veils

Night comes closer,
and the world is sand-
whipped and dry
and the elm trees bow
to the verge of breaking.
I am shedding skins
as desert things do,
and despite violent wind,
despite heat, despite
spines and barbs and
things that prick,
my edges are soft.

Above the river,
dozens of dark
winged bank swallows
dart and make praise
of the evening air
and the wild roses
spill their pink perfume—
the scent of miracle
is everywhere
and I, too,
bow to breaking.

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And then one day
it was not safer to be numb

and I walked into the field
and lay me down in the shining grass

and opened myself to the sky.
And all my petals fell.

For a while I did not think
that I would survive

the loss. A great bird
circled my bones.

And then the wind
came and I became wind.

And the darkness came
and I became darkness.

And the earth
reached up

with its terrible gravity
and I became the earth.

And I asked who is
the one who believes

she is lost?
And in the asking

I felt her disappear.

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Above the river
on the trestle bridge
I wept and I wept
and I threw my head back
and I wept and the tears
became two small
amber beads that strung
between my eyes
and the waves and
the tears became two
tiny amber birds
that flew between
me and the sky, and
one tear became
a silver heart
filled with flowers
that left a deep groove
on my cheek. I am
being erased,
I am being eroded,
I am losing all my lines.
The scent of roses
surrounds me, I
am becoming less skin,
less woman, more
river, more sky, l
am disappearing
one tear at a time.

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Forgive me. I have tried
to fix you. To be salve,
or more practically, glue.

As if you were not a man
but a leaky bucket
beneath the rain spout.

Or a cattail with its soft
creamy seeds spewing out.
I’ve abandoned my box

of tools. I no longer believe
in fixing you. My love,
the world is falling.

My love, nothing
is for sure. We
are rain water

in leaky buckets.
We are slowly
spilling seed.

My new practice—
to be here with you
as the field accepts

both rain and sun,
as the tree leaves
meet the wind.

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