iii. amongst the reeds i wait

after lamentations 3

This morning the mist rose from the steaming ground around the duck pond, drawing out 
the smells of sage and pine, musty and damp, that settled into the dry shell 
of my body, breathing a freshness into my nostrils, curling my hair and filling my dull 
heart with the dense fog of early September. A black duck, sleek and content, swam 

across the mirror, creating a V on the surface that was echoed overhead by those brave
ones, the first geese who squawked their southward exit, visible only 
for a moment before being swallowed by the sky. You, too have wrapped yourself 

up in a cloud, do you know that? Have you yet come 
to sit beside me on the bench near the thrushes, to watch also the water ripple 
in a mournful dance, which is a mercy all its own? Amongst the reeds I waited, wingless

and walled in, for the air to clear, to see again you who once filled the cup 
of my heart with beautiful things, who lead me into the darkness without any light. I waited, 
raw and aching, as the wild bodies of the sunflowers dropped their petals 
with a delicate, unashamed willingness—so unlike my bitter pacing, so sure 

of their rebirth from the dust. And still, the pond murmurs beneath your cloud, embracing 
the miniscule changes despite everything, prelude to the winter freeze, and the promised 
thaw of the springtime. It is a necessary terror, hope. See how the pond knows how to wait

for it, for the prayers to pass through her fingers, how to love, madly, the patterns on her skin 
even as they disappear, how to swim in the midst of the dark cloud, 
and quietly, remembering the morning. 

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