reach


she's reaching
far and stretching
herself to hold
an impossible thing.
she's reaching
far and grasping for
hope that feels like water
in her hands, so fluid
and running fast away.
reaching hard for something
invisible that's floating up like smoke
until it's gone.
"oh!" she says in her sleep
while she's dreaming of herself,
a small child who shushes the winking moon out her window
and then climbs the wooden ladder to a jar of cookies.
the ladder comes crashing down
and she falls as far as her hopes were high
she falls as hard as her yearning was strong
Thud! on the floor, the jar is shattered
into a million pieces around her.
That's what she's reaching for,
HOPE, so like glass sometimes
with the way it shatters.
But you cannot keep her from reaching.

TOP

 

 

Sure Sign

 

My mother sat on the cool stone porch and

gasped at the August moon

suspended low and huge over Georgia.

She declared its redness was a sure sign

That maybe Jesus would be coming back that night.

"and the moon will turn to blood"

she quoted the Bible.

 

In her frenzied anticipation,

she turned yellowed pages,

fanning my face with the perfume of aged paper

"before the great and glorious Day of the Lord comes!"

Mama carried on in her excitement,

Pressing her bony white finger hard on the page

to show me the proof in the Holy Word.

"See it there? Maybe this is the night!"

 

How could I have told her I was frightened

by the thought of a moon made of blood

with its crimson fluid dripping down on us

when she had so much hope in it?

 

I rested my head on her lap

while we remained in quiet stillness,

I, drifting off to sleep

while she smoothed back my hair

She, watching the moon,

hoping for a richer red, a second coming.

 

As the night turned darker,

my mother woke me with a heavy sigh.

My half awake eyes searched the sky.

"It?s over there." she said, pointing

"it's done gone orange-yellow.

I reckon I was mistaken

that it was a sign tonight."

 

Her soft hand guided me inside to bed

And I lay so that I could see her

through my bedroom doorway, leaning over the kitchen sink,

washing pans in deliberately quiet, slow repetitious motions

With her tired back bent like bowed wood

that could have easily broken.

I watched her and wished for another red moon

on the next night's certain arrival.