Honey smoked wood of Egypt
Turned on a lathe of time
Glossed by oil of a thousand hands
Tear cured in a vat of brine

On the other side of nothing, I,
Sit plaiting barren words
Weaving futile tinctures of light
And counting wood
Dichetal do Chennaib

Hang your harp in the tree, hang yourself, one eyed man
For what wisdom is worth in the end
Bite the apple, bite the sky
Both will turn to wormwood in your mouth
Bitter as gall in Gilead

If I tore my throat with a Valkyrie’s wail
Would it buy a cup of comfort?
To what end this eternal spinning
If it will not weave a piece of gauze
That will staunch this heartsblood flow?

The Banshee brings a rattling coach
Wood for a lychgate or bier
I see the darkness, hear the pain
Where is the fire for the Phoenix?

Shears and knives and scythes of steel
Wooden handles wear-sanded smooth
Who will teach my frozen fingers
To make a simple knot?

Smash your loom, hang it up with the harps
In this vast branching bentwood of Ash
There is no cup of comfort
No spiders lace for this monstrous pain
Save time
And what comfort is time?
The ravens gather with hungry eyes

So I whisper to the wind that moans through severed strings
Of harp and of loom and of heart
I am here
Helpless incapable powerless
With nothing to offer
I am here

He spun in the wind where the ash tree stood
A Wise Man in a dark, blood spattered hood
The spinner said, ‘tis understood
That in the end, it all comes to wood



Edwina Peterson Cross
February 2004

Rivers, Bridges and Other Cliché's


Thirty years later
I recognize your handwriting on the envelope immediately
Even without my glasses
You write to say
You are a Grandmother . . .
An unexpected gravity shift
In my mind, you are definitely
At incongruous angles with the word

I remember you holding the tiny newborn son
Who must be this baby’s father
When my own jigsaw childhunger was still
Unsolved, raw and throbbing
Even then, it was strange to me
How he fit so seamlessly in your arms
Yet had nothing at all to do
With the bright, fluid part of you
That belonged to me

A long, long time ago
The vivid, flowing beings that we were
Unclasped hands and stepped apart
And the years poured like a rushing river between us
Through all the years of motherhood
Those years of quiet joys and sleepless nights
We echoed and mirrored, but never quite touched
Drawing the traditional paper trail of
Christmas Cards and letters
Each signed at the end
With small, regretful handwritten
Sighs

I know the tale of four grown children
Though, it seems they must belong to another someone
Someone who wears a metaphor of your face
Someone who poses in photographs with beautiful strangers
Someone who can’t really be you
You, on the other side of that wide, deep, flood
Inextricably wearing the name of
“Grandmother”

So the years disappeared underwater like slick, sudden weeds
In a flood, in a rush, in a flux, in a torrent
You are a Grandmother
I struggle with a body suffused with chronic pain
We are no longer the bright, graceful beings
We once were . . .

Here I stop
Close my eyes and smile
For it doesn’t matter . . .
It doesn’t matter . . .
At all
Time may flood and rage and flow
But memory is a bridge that is stronger than time
Built of forever; anchored firm in our hearts
The river is a symbol, an image, a cliché
I’ll tell you what is real:

~

Somewhere
Out there in time
There are two young girls
Eternally
Driving around in the middle of the night

Two heads are tipped together
Chestnut, Gold
Cradling confidence; trading trust
Somewhere a full moon shines
On the clean, clear line of their throats,
Their heads thrown back in laughter
Somewhere two voices lace the darkness
Asking deep, intent questions of life
Never pausing to listen for an answer

~

So our bodies are growing old, and our eyes are growing dim
So we go another twenty years and our hands never touch
It doesn’t matter . . .
It doesn’t matter . . .
At all

Somewhere
In the deepness of a hushed summer night
An endless summer night, rich with the smell of honeysuckle and hay
We are forever sixteen
Savoring sips of sweet stolen darkness
Dancing forever
on the edge of light


Edwina Peterson Cross
( With Love, For Bertha )