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| Waning moon, kookopolo frost flautist |
Once There Was Light
After reading Kenyon’s “Having it Out With
Melancholy”
it's early again. i looked up a
word i did not know the meaning
of and thought how apt a metaphor for
we
who float and rise and nearly capsize
in our little boats.
coracle. room enough for one,
possibly
one more. in her poem 'having it
out with melancholy' jane
kenyon says it is what sleep arrives
in, a 'frail wicker coracle.'
how such floats are only supposed to
be rowed close
to the shoreline. so
vulnerable. imagine the only
thing between your feet and the water
is that skin
and wicker. there's an intimacy
in such an agreement,
isn't there. a trust in the
terrain. the broad sky alight
and yoked to our shoulders to remind
us
only the great weight of gravity keeps
us
from walking entirely into the upward
pitch, the birth
promise yet on our lips when we
exchanged our wings
for feet: keep this deep ropey bone
only
a while longer. coax it to float
and not fly off
too soon, so when soon arrives the
marrow
will begin to thin as if it were wool
being carded
or more apt the seeds of dandelions
being
wished upon, clutched in fists and
caught breaths,
and the pucker of the kiss when the
breath
pours out over and the wisps lift into
the air
and float over the surface of the
water
and cling a while to our coat while we
go on
and on walking in our bones...
