To The Light of September

To the Light of September
“When you are already here
you appear to be only
a name that tells of you
whether you are present or not

and for now it seems as though
you are still summer
still the high familiar
endless summer
yet with a glint
of bronze in the chill mornings
and the late yellow petals
of the mullein fluttering
on the stalks that lean
over their broken
shadows across the cracked ground

but they all know
that you have come
the seed heads of the sage
the whispering birds
with nowhere to hide you
to keep you for later

you
who fly with them

you who are neither
before nor after
you who arrive
with blue plums
that have fallen through the night

perfect in the dew”
– W. S. Merwin

Fear and Seeing Aura…

It Wasn’t Death She Saw
But life:
skin dancing with flesh
like silk curtains that swirl in the wind
above her mother’s window
up up now puff! and in again
Or breath – is the wind breathing?
She’d been playing in the grass when it happened:
the snake flung
from the mower’s blade, rainbows
of ribbons in the air
rainbows rainbows everywhere, catch a ribbon for your hair
She wrapped the pretty pieces in willow leaves and grass.
When she told her mother what she’d seen –
the way life
leapt out of the snake
just like a ballerina –
her mother beat her,
scrubbed her tongue with salt
but Mama, it was beautiful, like fireflies at night
She learned to hold her body
very still.
– Kirstin Hotelling Zona