May 31 | The Visitation (Poem)

The Visitation

 

Prayer, cook

Sweep, sow

Prayer, cook

Feed, prayer

Sleep

Repeat

Year

after

year

You never

received special treatment

and neither did I,

save breath

and blood.

God gave these gifts

and I gave them back.

It’s not enough.

Year after year and still

no life.

My herbs grew,

my nieces and nephews grew.

You grew,

but you were not mine:

My beloved flesh,

my cousin,

you were different.

You were slow and quiet

but your heart

was a great star.

Your eyes were earthy:

untold things grew from them,

things no-one could hope to cultivate,

things no-one could name.

I dreamed of you often,

dreams I dared speak to no-one:

Dreams that found us lying side by side

in a field of red flowers;

I looking at you,

you looking up

to heaven.

One night, the dreams came again.

Now the flowers grew out of my belly.

I stared in horror: they were beautiful

but they had faces

crying out;

they all turned like sunflowers

to look at you.

You smiled

with tears on your face.

And now in the winter of my life

you stand outside my door.

You have changed.

Your eyes were once a jungle;

dark things rustled just out of view.

Now they are suns.

I am afraid,

but you hold out your arms,

and I am drawn in:

you have made me

your moth.

I come within your light,

and life leaps within me.

My inner garden is aflame.

Later while you slept, I watered it with tears.

Now I know

what will burst forth from this parched earth

will be so much more than me.