Remember me, if nothing else, as one who lived.
—Kassiane
In the lowering sun,
my children and I
throw rocks
into shallow pools
beside the river
where the water
forgets to rush.
And though
the low light
spellbinds me
as it filters through
my daughter’s flaxen hair,
I find my thoughts
skip otherwhere
across regions of uncertainty.
Skip, skip, skip, skip
and sink. The rings
widen wherever
the stone
has touched.
And fade.
Skip, skip, skip,
and sink. It is
not that I don’t
believe in miracles.
It’s that I believe
in daily things.
Like how
in the low gold light
of May a woman
might see how
she has been a stone
and feel that
even now
she is changing
into, what?
something else.
Skip, skip, skip,
sink. Still water.
Expanding rings.
Here’s where the poem reverberates. I’ve just trimmed a few phrases. A fine set of closing lines. Also, I wonder if the daughter even belongs in this poem. I see how as triggering device she arrives here, but try reading it once with just the woman.
It is
not that I don’t
believe in miracles.
I believe
in daily things.
Like how
in May’s low gold light
a woman might see
how she has been
a stone
and feel that
even now
she is changing
into, what?
something else.
Skip, skip, skip,
sink. Still water.
Expanding rings.