the snow could not be deeper, then it is
ancestors find me indoors
rest is sometimes given, sometimes taken
when I tilt my head to be held by you
this invitation lands in my dreams
where the shards are kept, and pieced together
I couldn’t lean for care where I needed it
to be upright, a miracle of knowing strength
from whatever source, of earth or energy
rage, in a path given requiring choices
for shelter, vocation, a place to keep fire
where water might find me, but it was wrong
first to see it was wrong, then seek another wrong
this time to make right, not with flight
but with staying, waiting, teaching, believing
that is a mothering way, a want becoming wanted
a weakness wearing the skeleton of strength
what brings you joy, what keeps it
what makes today a stone of beauty in my hand
who are the guides and teachers to hold me up
from those whose role it is to give resistance
a lifetime of fight flight freeze, unconscious threat
she is nearer to her ending and it calls her
that first and constant, infant shock or shattering
slowly becomes known, a shadowed shape
heart barely grown, a path I was shown
to work for care through attracting attraction
it never fit, but creating in words, line and light
tied my truths to place and time, for later to find
I was not lonely, I had a journey to make
to be in relation to self, history, land and space
forgiveness an apology, emergency to emergency
when there is no love there is no real loss
but loss might show love was there, under ice
it must be painful to love as survival
shards as weapons also inward
shards of others memories, when do they melt
she shows that death is an ending to light
but shadows remain, on skin, snow, in the night
whatever you carry, may it have time to return
to mother, to water, to reflection, to sight