The Chores of Eternity

 

 

Outside, back of the house I looked up through the bare elm branches.

 

Chill air hugged me all round and dark, moonless sky arched over me like the shadow of my mother’s body as she kissed me good night so long ago.

 

Looking up at the bright, breathing stars I wondered if I would remember this moment, if words would begin to flow in and surround the deep well of meaning that waited as an invisible presence.

 

Surrendering into the cold I inhaled the breath of the stars tinged with the smell of pinion smoke that made me ache for exactly where I was, in that moment of awakened night where the black of the sky was a color and not an absence of light.

 

I crown this moment with words, and bow to Her, she who offered to be born into my poem. 

 

Jacketless, I moved towards the backdoor but lingered, still, in the midst of my life, rich silence poured down on me, an unfathomable kindness radiant amid the sharp winter cold and the deep black of the heavens of infinite breathing stars caught between leafless branches. 

 

I entered the yellow light of the house and humming warmth, filled with the quiet queenliness of the night, revived by the breath of stars to finish up the dishes and sweep the kitchen floor.

 

 

 

Dec. 15, 2010

Taos , NM