On the high woven palace
royalty sleeps. Sun
fiddles and opens the sky.
Alexandra rises on her small legs
leaning on the breast
of her mother.
David tucks his wings
into a feathery broom.
Warmth from the burning heart
of their nest wells up
like water.
Below and around in the voicelessness,
in the lower spectrum
growing still
we gather,
ghosts on limbs and cloud formations,
chatting about the weather,
the next low tide,
if what the fisherman caught
is a rat fish or greenling.
If crow will catch another midshipmen
for the eagle to steal.
Who's coming for mother's day.
In boxes far inland and across whale fields
more ghosts gather. Some sit, some sleep.
Watchers and guardians learning the songs
of hunger, of love,
of warning.
Something falls down. As one, they all turn
toward the crying.
They huddle and use the skills
they learned from raptors: when cold, cover,
when hungry, feed as soon as you can.
When tired, surround and rock to sleep.
Patient they wait, ghosts
know these things.
Be still. There are no right words
so they are quiet. They hand out gifts
of their experience that don't look like
anything.
But you feel it. It begins to come to you
like something remembered. The pause,
the place where you can stop
and rest in the night after the day
of all that is happening. And rest before
night comes again.
Balanced, on the axis, we dangle together
mingling, bumping into each other,
loving the ocean of our existence.
Vunerable yet wise.
Learning that even if the light is out,
and the room feels empty,
even if the one who lies so still upon
the floor, leaking life,
seems gone,
what you loved
and felt of the physical being
of their life,
is still within your arms,
against your chest,
warm in the invisible light
of the spirit world.
To the room with the orange couch
bring the bird of your heart.
Take the drink of our friendship,
serve us your tears.
Even the eagles are here on our shoulders
and nothing is too heavy
that this love
cannot carry.
for Gallatin
c2011 T.L.Stokes (all rights reserved)
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