In Wait

IN WAIT

(to my writing (muse))

I want to open the vessel

Take in the light

Reign it with a Scribe's hands

And say things unsaid

My hearing the sound

Of owl's claw clutching

And a small distant cry

For sustenance

Like the aging call 

Of my soul in disarray

In missing its muse.

I want to force it open,

Like a child with stick in hand,

Poking and prodding

Turning over forcefully

The dead beetle laid askew

Dried and brittle

On the sunned afternoon pavement

Twisting her fingers in a crossed

Hopeful prayer, the clock ticked back,

Of giving back

The magical watching of life

Moving through the underbrush

Then into the light

To be caught and written,

Witnessed,

And the gasp remembering 

The beauty that brings to a breathing heart.

I want to know 

it wasn’t an illusion

the way secrets were whispered 

beneath words in the morning

when my eyes fluttered open 

and the hand shoved

upon the page

notes not its own

the feeling of wisened breath

moving through without 

on push of resistance to its 

arriving wake and flow.

I want to take it

In my belly, again,

Let it digest things

Rotting or ripening

The juicy distillation 

Of life’s fruit

Falling in heaps on the page,

Spilling sapped promises to the ones

Who listen

Who yearn for some sense to be made

Of this life

And this, yes, this

I want to accept 

That sometimes a distance happens

From you, my love,

And I can lean back and 

Give you the space you need

To lengthen 

In the shadows to stretch your neck out

To find me again, 

Trusting the waiting

Is a necessary gestation,

To birthing these very words,

One day again,

Upon the patient page,

Lonely with waiting too

Till finally and suddenly

The ache of waiting 

Soothed by black inked words

Dropping, spilling, dripping

Again on the stark linen fibers.