awash

for years i have been crying. i've let tears undo me. the light like this the words like this and tears so suddenly and fierce. all water and salt and familiar. like scratching a mosquito bite. so satisfying for a few moments. a relief, a reward. wear me out and do me in. i think i'll give them up this fall. not forever not for always, but for awhile give them a rest. they are just the surface scratch and the itch is so much deeper. water is not the cure, but breath and fire and bravery. i have become accustomed to crying and now i let the custom fall away. i find a new tradition. some deeper ceremony. no more weeping into the dark. i bring our bed back to neutral make the shower safe. make the spaces we share sacred and intimate and lean toward joy. i lead away from the shore of infinite sadness. i abandon the boat on the beach and walk away from the water towards the wind and the horizon.

i can hear you singing. from a long way off.

the bones come back black. holy rolling down the hills and salt to fill in the quiet places. linden in bloom. quiet city. streets so wide and sidewalks waiting. a wish to land here and a dread of landing. i wish this was the place. the backyard. the cellar. the desert west. the steep to the east. all these faces shining on the shore and a breathlessness that binds my words and keeps the deepest pieces deep. i want to shake free of me and  just enjoy each in their being, but i bumble. i seek grace and find all elbows. send out the kites and the bones come back black. lack of lightening.

the ghost is gone and life is happening here.

we went out to where we remembered the river running and it was dry. just the smooth stones left sitting in the fine red silt. we stood still in the middle of it, where the water would have been quickest. branches tangled up in each other wrapped around small trees. how did they grow here? in between the two banks? we were quiet. something cool came out of the evening. we thought we could hear the rush of it somewhere. a long way off. maybe it was just the wind, like the inside of a shell. the quiet rush of nothing much left behind.