This is the stillpoint of solstice:
late June, evening. The milltown river,
with its floating candles flickering
as an orange twilight falls.
In this newly minted summer,
porches commune with their rocking chairs
and sunsets unfurl slowly.
My inventory of the longest day
reveals a stasis of bliss
settling inside my core
like a reservoir
when hope is complete:
the moat connecting my heart
to all its desires
had filled to overflowing,
but the storms no longer bleed
into the gutters now
and traumatize the trees.
There is only this stillness today,
as the weeds and branches
in urban prairies breathe
chlorophyll dreams and people
have left on vacation,
leaving nature to ripen
in its own rhythms.
My heart is neither full nor empty;
only witnessing spring’s G-forces
slowing into the growing of fruit
within the cricket calls
and the burgeoning balls
of bug spittle on grass-tufts
smelling of oxygen and life.
After the tumult of lift-off,
I have reached some cruising altitude
in the ether of wish-fulfillment.
This man
whose heart I have sewn myself to
like my feet to my shadow
is the stormcloud to me,
and the calm after the storm.
He’s a hidden colossus
growing in the underbrush
of a vacant lot,
a magic beanstalk
towering over all the sumac
and green-blooming yellow dock.
His honor is so high
I can’t see all the way to its top;
I crane my neck to see the branches
where he collects stray birds
and lets them build their nests
in his hair—
I don’t know all that is inside him
but I know that in his stratosphere,
he is building me a castle
with all the softest pillows
and velvet drapes of his longing.
He’s already put his money down
on me, thrown away all his gold
for the magic beans I gave
away to him for free—
and I don’t need proof
of habitability
to make myself at home
in its rooms today
I already live in the hollows
and burls of his loftiest imaginings
and in my sleep,
I wrap my arms around his trunk
and the bark of his chest
smells like earth against my cheek.
Even in dreams we find each other,
knocking on each other’s doors
to come out and play
he is larger than life to me
but for those who can’t see
the forest for the trees,
he’s cloaked in secrecy
and I think I’ll keep him
(just that way)—
I want to choose this moment
to thread into my loom,
weaving the shuttle on repeat
long enough to make a cloth.
I want this comfortable weight
of service in my palms:
the changing of colored yarns,
the lumps and random
variations of pattern.
Adaptations, buried treasure scraps.
These everyday tasks;
the diligence of devotion.
Keep the warp lines uncut
and build a Moebius strip with its weft
we can walk both sides of
forever. This is called
perfection.
I want to hold onto this feeling—
not like candles on the river
and not like the river itself,
but like the trust
in an ocean,
vast and tireless—
containing all storms
and swallowing all dying
in its open jaws
of life.
© Psyche Marks 2017
(Photo, Psyche Marks)