THE LONG NIGHT OF THE BODY
By Ruth Daigon
She dreads the thought of going
back
empty handed,
with memory shredded
into alphabets of
silence.
Through the long night of the body,
she weaves a
tapestry,
finger tips remembering each stitch,
each stroke a
small pulling together
of her entrance into the world,
poised
like a bird, shaped
into a moment of wings
in a
perfect attention of flight,
of branching roads beneath her,
corridors of wind, tattoos of light,
a sliver of stream
finding its path
through rock and earth and clay,
through a
universe of seeds
moting the calm summer air
and wonder leaping
in recognition.
In a hush of color, she returns
unencumbered.
Twisting like a blade
edgewise to the moon's
light she
slips through it for one hour,
the next,
then all
the others.