a child looking forward,
like a horse eager for the trail.
Once I roamed the fire roads,
and the backcountry above small towns,
where the morning fog
was a lid on the Pandora’s box
of what was to come.
Once those ridges held me
like a mother to child.
I knew no other home
and I became a song of wind and sky
as I traversed those ridges above Tomales Bay
a sword gleaming in the distance,
a path of light dividing the lithospheres.
I didn’t know the wind was a poem,
was also a prayer as well as a road.
There was only now. Always
the now, even back then.
Am I a prayer of the past,
a prayer of the untrammeled land,
a prayer of time anchored in memory,
like a flag full of promise?
I mourn for those islands of youth,
carefully folded into time,
distant memories, reimagined
and tailored to fit the present.
How do I tell that child
alone in the wilderness
that the darkness of this world
is a lens occluded with sand and grit.
Call it despair. I am a prayer.
Let the moon traverse the sky,
where Orion keeps his sword
sheathed for an eternity.
Let the flags of peace be of hope
to those in war-torn countries.
Call it Ukraine, call it Palestine.
It doesn't matter where.
A child once said to me:
any step toward war is a wrong step.
The fallen children
who will never again
gaze upon the restless sea,
who will never get a chance to share
the occluded memories of old age,
because in wartime there are no victors.
Only the wind whispers
our names as broken prayers
tangled in dark forests,
greeting the first light.
11/22/23 Write On! with Susie Terence
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