by Inger Gilbert

     no water here, running amongst the rocks
     cooling their heat, softening their surface,
     allowing their thirst,
     preparing the ground

     how easy it is to come to a hard place,
     remain there, believing
     of any further advance, change, forgiveness
     that it must come from the harshness, the rigidity, the darkness
     that it must come from the battle,
     the conflict of hardness with hardness,
     force against force
     in the mind, amongst the words
     in the body, amongst the bones

     forgetting the nine-month's confinement,
     the darkness, the crowdedness, the isolation,
     miraculously succeeded by light, air, spaciousness,
     eyes meeting eyes, lungs folded like inward wings,
     the breath, the rhythm, the cadence
     of rising and falling
     of taking in and letting go
     of holding and releasing,
     the tides from their appointments
     submerging, circumscribing the land,
     the place unto which you came
     your birth into accumulation, into release, into unfolding

     how easy it is to forget
     that which is closest to us
     that which is most intimate, most faithful, most enduring
     the breath, the blue gift,
     softest presence in your grief,
     silent attendance in your want,
     the cutting of the umbilical cord
     forging new passage, new gesture,
     the air carried
     deep into the blood,
     the journey begun

     thinking instead
     that you can shape yourself into a boulder
     life for your standing, an arid plain,
     indifferent, inert, unspoken,
     impassive
     under the weather

     forgetting
     that you are the eyes
     looking at the boulder
     that you are the thoughts
     imagining the tension, the weight
     the molecules of darkness, of desiccation, of death
     inside, at the center of the rock,
     the absence of weather,
     the entrapment of time,
     the breath changed into stillness,
     cold, unmoving, hard,

     what must it be like?