Sitting,
listening,
a word bubbles,
pops–
“beloved.”
Many have washed over me
as I listened to the guide;
all have floated away now
but this.
Night rain has spent its
hoarded coin to the last minim,*
fog parts, burns into blue,
earth exhales the excess of mist,
flowers unfurl their faces to the sun,
roots strike deeper into soil,
mountain ash get gloriously drunk,
braid daylight with emeralds.
Summer’s gifts unfold, all of us
gathering on the shore of morning
to harvest and heap them on the day’s doorstep–
rainbows culled from the hummingbird’s wings,
raspberry rubies my darling plumped on our breakfast,
chortles and trills spilling from the mockingbird
who’s been in training for the past week,
Liberation Day and the school bands’ lively outbursts,
blue saturating the sky like ink on cotton–
so many jewels sparkling in the sand.
Floods have begun, scouring me of darkness,
filling me with liquid light while
“Beloved”
drums in my ears as if spoken,
ignites my soles to leap, soar and prance,
presses my throat to explode into song,
nothing to be left of me but shreds of
prismatic silk adrift on the velvet breeze.
