Kissed Into Belonging
A little cabin on the shore of a bulging bay,
leans into a shelter of tall Jacks. I cracked the door open
and dust motes danced to see me coming to a home, of sorts.
Bedding for a bed, a pot for cooking, personal pleasures,
a rug for the floor, my mother’s last teddy bear,
that watched her slowly slip into a dark heaven
I was hoping enter one day, were taken
from the tight cases I had packed. My children, waiting
for me to settle into the pine spills
cried on the phone that they made a mistake in not coming.
It was to late for tracing my steps back. None of them needed
me since turning their heads from my milk. Such beautiful
betrayal. Like an excommunicated wolf, I needed this forest
to kiss me with consolation for all of it.
That first night, at the Lake, I made Chai
in a large mug someone had left behind
in the creaky kitchen cabinets. The cup had a crack in it,
like it had been dropped, or thrown, and patched back together
but it held sweetness that followed my spoon
making a tiny wet tornado that finally calmed
once I took the spoon out and stopped stirring.
The sun that had been circling me all day
slipped into the raised fingers of the dense forest.
Night spilled onto the monochromatic blue
lake. Listless little laps against the darkening shore
invited me down to where sand took its last
nightly drink before giving way to darkness and slumber.
Something broke from between horizon’s
fringe of trees, beautiful and pink.
It arc’d, achingly, through eyelash of forest;
like a mother’s hand, reaching out
to pull a star quilt over the cheek of a dead child.
Across the wet lip of light, skimmed three sails,
curled at the top like ships that have rolled
their canvases against masts for night’s quiet rock:
Pelicans taking the last spotlight, quietly clacking
and treading their way into that last light.
For the moments it took to discern bird from boat,
the Universe closed her eyes tighter and alone
became less lonely. Although I could not see them,
they were there, working webbed feet
against the undertow, out of reach of the low bush
marauders. A night hover swooped a shivering
goodnight before he disappeared again as if scooped
by an unseen hand. A lone cried in her watery bed
at the loss of day. The lake took a last lip lick
and there was a hushed hum as the Northern Lights
began their dance on September sky. The North Star
moved towards midnight and I felt my way
through the snake grass, between the shore-hugging
trunks and back to where the lamp in the window
welcomed me to a community of one woman.
I threw open the windows to the night songs,
never knowing Pelicans came so far north,
I had not looked to see them before.
I knew I had just been kissed into a bigger belonging.