FOR THE MOTHER WHO SLEPT IN THE SNOW
She slept in your house and now she has built a house in the snow, you hoped to follow the strange bird in her, that she hoped to follow, but you couldn't catch up, with your mother who made a refuge for herself, the heat of confusion keeping out the cold, while it ate her skin alive, I think she was waiting for you, while snow weighted needles burst into fire, the frozen air talking in static, in a sleep that came deeper and deeper from the woods, her strange unearthly company, or she may have laughed and sobbed out there, imagining your small hands over her eyelids, while living in orbit, how could she hope to be found by you?, it would be like trying to hold onto a cloud, never forget it was bitterly cold, I think the pines were watchful, as they swayed with the solid ice in them, but the branches were confusing to her, she lived in the world apart from nature, you know she would have died out there, I think she was waiting to be found, in her quieter moments, she feared the movement of wind and snow, until fragmentation and then nothing at all, we wait by a frozen waterfall to heal ourselves, we fall asleep on the slippery rocks, hoping that when we wake up the pain will be gone, dispersed by water travelling through water, know that some part of her was renewed, you saw her attempts at an exit from life through a boy's soft eyes, you picked the rags of her out of the dirt, as if to you, they were the most holy possessions on earth, you would survive in the wilderness as long as she did, but now think of her as an elk who kept up with the herd, her mind went with them and it never came back. |
