I draw lines transecting the doorway
Vertical then horizontal
Drab, heavy old thing
I cannot open it, cannot move it toward me, as in this scenario I would have no opposable
Thumbs, thumbs dug into the wet clay of our terrible
Mortality
While You
Let me through every time
To this endless deep
Expanse of night, the wind, the grieving girl who would
Tell you never leave
Oh, darling, spring
Takes ahold a little
More each day
In the leaves over us, in the moon through the branches of this
Place you have been
All these years I
Will miss you
Think about it.
Your darkest night
Your loneliest moment
The here-and-there times when it is either your own
Life or the life of the beloved
Taken from you
Faith I get
Love anchors
But it is my squint-into-the-sun-reticence about hope
Which drives me to speak
Of mountains.
Today darling the mountains
Are all shaped like crowns
Crowns of thorns or flowers,
The braided laurels of an imperial victory
He said, it is finished beneath these crumbling mountains
And I will wait, sometimes in tears
To see them all
Thrown into the sea.
I was there when you packed your bags, when you got the passport pictures, (the garrulous postal employee who took them was a highlight!). I was there for all the worry–the mama worry–and there for the day when we drove to the airport all together
To see you off to
Great Adventure!
Despite all my trepidations, I was excited for all of you. I thought this will be cool and said take lots of pictures!
I went in with my eyes wide open
Too many emails back and forth with grownups
getting paid a lot to take you there
Not Mothers Teresas at all
But I didn’t expect this
The lonely road home
The uphill battle just to get you back home
You are home now, darlings
And never let anyone tell you
You are worth anything less than the whole world entire
I would tell you
If I could stand in every airport in the world
Homemade Sign held high and goofily askew
Letters spelt out–
💜WELCOME HOME, ANTARCTIC EXPLORERS!!💙
You mean the world to me
I wake with your feather weight along my sternum, papoosed across
My spine
I mourn my inability to save
You from this uncertain and inevitable
Loss
Take you with me everywhere
Haunt me, girl-child
Make me do
impossible things
for love
Long before our terrible story your birthday was already
the feast of Servites pruning winter roses. I cling to that now, all the other days this day could be:
Obstinate mountains lumber into obeisant seas
Lame men whole, blind men see
Dead men rise and shake off their shroudy bindings
impossible things all around ya
If only you will
See
I learned a long time ago that even a child can have dark spots, scorched places where
Love should have been
She writes to probe an old wound we share between us
A ghost who walks and spits and curses his proper Maker
What can I say?
What can I tell you that has not already transpired between us?
Only that God can tell a girl to go look
For her little sister (to play)
Then set the captives free
In the stories of Jesus’ public ministry there are accounts of people who have been healed of skin diseases which would have set them apart from their communities due to infection prevention measures codified by the Mosaic law.
In some of these stories, Jesus heals them and gives them permission to not tell people they were ever infected with these diseases.
I think this injunction was made (at least in part) to allow them to have a new life, unencumbered by prejudice.
When my family moved to a new place a few years after we found out that our adopted son had sexually assaulted some of our children, I realized that this was our chance to “start anew.”
We had pushed for legal consequences for Charles. We had a good counselor in the aftermath. We moved to protect the children. We were open with everyone in our previous community.
But we chose to continue
To tell our story.
The result has been fascinating and lonely.
There is a lot of prejudice about victims of sexual abuse and their families, maybe especially in churches.
We could be contagious?
Maybe
Or maybe it is our openness that scares them.
Either way, we call it “the island.” We live on an island
An island made of truth and pain and loneliness
With a single, unwavering resident
The one who heals us.
The one who knows this quiet place.
The one who tells us the truth will set us free.
My family is healthy, happy, and stable because we have never tried to hide
The story of our grief
But it can be quiet
On the island.
I pull down the old book, look for recipes for cultivating children, like the time she sewed the earth with dragon’s teeth and made them into men…
I don’t want men
I want daisies
Dozens and dozens, hundreds and hundreds, legions and legions, fields upon fields
Filled with Bellis perennis–beauties everlasting
Because only God can
Make lasting
Children out of words
And wildflowers
Carrying Light 