Pages

Sunday, July 20, 2014

To See Past The Morning

Buddha
—Photo by D.R. Wagner



‪UNABLE TO SAY AMEN‬
‪ ‬—D.R. Wagner, Locke
 
‪ I am no longer North, although my blood‬
‪ Still comes to freezing when I think of ships‬
‪ Bound by the ice and crushed like thoughts‬
‪ On paper, abandoned on some sea that never‬
‪ Had a name. ‬
‪ ‬
‪ I am compelled to stare across the distances,‬
‪ Full of alarm at the winds that have become‬
‪ My breath, no longer able to carry words,‬
‪ Yet afraid to not speak when the Aurora Borealis ‬
‪ Sits square behind my eyes and I retain the gift‬
‪ To see deep into the souls of those who claim‬
‪ A special knowledge of where the ark might‬
‪ Have landed or of which great lakes might contain‬
‪ The grandfather of the fishes who can still speak‬
‪ The language of the land.‬
‪ ‬
‪ I have held the braids of trinkets from the time‬
‪ When shells and bright bird feathers were woven‬
‪ Into baskets finer than the thoughts of great chieftains.‬
‪ ‬
‪ I recall the prayers to corn and fields of grain‬
‪ That they be full and rich and able to bear us‬
‪ Through the throat of the Winter, when the snow‬
‪ Is deep upon the ground and the eye of the hare‬
‪ Is the only black in such a great surround.‬
‪ ‬
‪ I am no longer North, so now I may bid you come‬
‪ To me and I will tell of many things—of magic‬
‪ Long forgotten, of tall spirits who once roamed‬
‪ These same lands through forests older now‬
‪ Than memory.  Those who once had eyes‬
‪ To see past the morning and who could reflect‬
‪ The sun as if they were the water that made all‬
‪ Of man and animal what they were when first they came‬
‪ Upon this land, when first they walked into this valley‬,
‪ When first they called a name to God.‬

_________________________

—Medusa