For That Sharp Pain
“Great stillness reigned in the forest,
and I heard the green leaves dream,
I heard the dream of the bark from which
boats, ships, and sails will arise.”
(Adam Zagajewski)
There are half-finished statues out in the yard
and almost bald patches of yellow white grass,
where the stone that blossomed stood before
the newly finished work was lifted
by the old gardener and his two sons,
wrapped in blankets, placed, like fragile eggs, in straw
on the back of your old truck -
and you, delivered from obsession,
lover, mother, midwife to whatever
lies awake and waiting, locked inside
the dreaming clay or stone; you, your hair
still wet with sweat and crowned with
tiny shards of dead skin stone; you,
your fingers now slowly unclenching: Letting go.
How I love you in these moments,
when the old truck roars and the forest
holds its breath; when you forsake, for now,
the stone and clay, the chisel of Creation;
when you walk, unburdened, past me, back inside:
You set me free, abandoned me, so long ago,
I have become invisible to you -
but I still love and crave for breath on stone,
for that sharp pain of being born.
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