Monique Writes

When I was young,
I was a nymph
and a mermaid
and a unicorn.

Like those things
I would not be captured.
I was both bold and shy.

Tonight I hold back silent tears
for the youth I shed,
for the red in my cheeks
that has turned to rust
for the freckles
that have turned to spots
for the fire in my hair
that has turned to snow.

Breasts hang
chin doubles
fingers thicken.

Experience and wisdom
are not the companions
I meant to walk with so long.

As moon rises up over the new greening spring
I want to fling my naked self
against the trees,
into the seas,
upon the laps of virgins

where I will hold my head high
and this time look you in the face
with both eyes wide.

4/25/16

When we first met
I thought you were in a tower
looking down at everything.

Then I saw that your tower
was simply a very large wall.

Then I learned that your wall
was an untamed forest
and I chose to push
steadily through it,
one arm before
the other arm,
holding back the branches
ever-so-gently
so they would not break
when they met again.

I seldom turned back
but when I did
I would see the path
had closed behind me
only mostly
and where I’d walked
and pushed,
the way was greening.

This is the way I came here.

It was then that I saw
your heart was
a hidden pine grove
with a golden carpet of spills
so deep that
my footfalls were silenced
and so
when I had come fully in,
I think you were too surprised
by my presence
to demand that I leave.

It was then that we first met again.

Peace be with you,
said the man
whose dusty sandals
no king wore.

Open your eyes,
said the man
whose roughened hands,
filled with clay
brought sight.

Throw the stone,
said the man
whose arms carved by labor
helped others to stand.

Come out of him,
said the man
whose name was known
by all the darkness,
which fled before him.

Throw the seed,
cut the fig,
light the lamp,
forgive them, father,
said the man
whose body broken
housed all things.

Speak but a word
and I shall be healed.

Said the man,
peace be with you.

Today is a why day.

It is the reason that the sun
has been greeted on so many mornings
and the reason that the stars
have gone to bed so often
before you.
It is the reason for all the miles
of good road
and poor road
and nights when eyelids
could have used (in toothpicks) the same
famework you’d built that morning
to support an exhausted frame.

Today is a day
when the sacrifices and lonely times
show their worth.
It is the dawning of a day
in your own history.

Today is why
you walked away
from things you loved before.
When you stepped into the darkness,
an unfamiliar place, away from the
roads you knew well.

You chose another path –
one with sore arms
one with thick hands
one with scrapes
and cuts
and slivers.

Today is a day
when you look like houses.
Your good bones covered
with the clean, fine lines of hard labor,
You skin darkened by sunshine
and softened by weather.
Your eyes as clear as old glass,
crafted with intention and care.

Today is a day
to remind you
of how you first fell in love.

How straight she was, how tall.
How graceful and beautiful.
How her windows rippled in the light.
How your hands felt against her smooth planks.
How she would bear the years with your care.
How you would bear the years with her memory…

How she stood stronger when you left her.

Yesterday you touched charred wood
and build around it a reliquary –
a sturdy one – big enough to hold its story.

Today, you reach out
across decades to
make the mortise
transform the tread
fix the fenestration…

Today is a why day.

Today you write your own history
in story and wood.

Today you climb and look
across the tall trees in splendor,
across the long roads,
across your own years.

And from that great height
the sound of hammer to nail
rings and rings and rings
with a music
more
beautiful
than any
cast
bell.