by Pamela Porter
You will have to stand in a field,
the outstretched earth, and be forgotten.
What you have written gone without recognition.
Here, far from town where no one comes
to visit, wind drives down the tallest firs,
threatening the house, felling the lines.
It is a journey you must take: crumble
paper for a pitiable fire, smoke rising
white as bone, and struggle to comprehend
how this moment is important,
the place where your spirit lives.
What will sing beneath the earth then?
And the day goes early down to dark,
your skin lit by the moon, creases
carved by its sharp stone tool.
Given to a knowing unseen
by the human world, you grow
more feral by the day. The gradual
wearing away leaves you more spirit
than flesh, your spine a curved road
to the sky, an ending in which is hidden
a beginning. Now with patience
you’ve learned the air’s quick gestures
in the dark, a music without sound
which only you and the farthest stars can hear.
A secret more delicate… Linda Gregg
— from Juniper Volume 4, Issue 1