by Sophia Rosenberg
be still
listen
slip through the needle eye of silence.
leave behind your preference for black licorice, your talent for word games
your grandfather’s watch….your hair, your skin, your teeth
enter naked as bones
ask the furred, the feathered, the finned
how to ford the river, how to scale the rock cliff
how to spin your flax to gold
feel the floor beneath your absence,
the wide planks of the old house
that were once proud firs breathing out cool fog,
touch the skies those trees held up
stand before gods that are strangers
whose language is harsh in your ears
and do not flinch
trust kindness when you find it-
the flesh surrounding the apple’s seed
the apple carried in the beak of a raven
become the raven’s fingered wings
flying through time
sifting wounds and wonders
become your one unbearable wound
cry tears that freeze in six-pointed geometry
then fall and fall
until they smooth mountains
be the unmistakable snowflake
that launches the avalanche
and buries the village
become the thaw
uncover a memory of wholeness
drip that sweet clean water
on the growing vine
of generations
the vine that will someday flower with the twin stars
of a baby’s open hands
a baby who will cry out to you
from a dense and troubled darkness
and you will answer:
heal child, the way is in your blood.
Sophia Rosenberg lives off-grid on a small island in the Salish Sea. Her writing has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals including Lilith Magazine, Fireweed, Canadian Women’s Studies Journal, Room of One’s Own, We’moon, The Pagan Book of Living and Dying. and most recently Sublime, poems for vanishing ice. Born at midnight under a full, blue moon, she has been making magic ever since.