Alexandra Seidel
and your face my love, your face
framed in my locket eyes
I dreamed the white tips of the mountains melted
and raced the long way down
through dust and dirt and oldness
to collect like gathered tears in our palms.
When the darkness found me on the tree
I took it like a coat offered one
who’s dying from the cold, I took it
like a promise;
the darkness that I took, it links us, and
that chain that holds us close,
my love, it will never break.
When the storm found me on the tree
I made myself to the storm
a stoic leaf, holding tightly to the bark;
the storm was a whip, and yet I never let go;
the storm was a knife, and yet I held on;
the storm was your voice, and yet and yet
I am still here.
When the crone found me on the tree
I sipped the water that she offered,
sipped it from her steady chalice hand;
the crone is old, and needs few words
yet from the throwing bones I heard her speak.
When the last day of being on the tree found me
I forgot what time was made like to be;
one thing like a woven thread
or like so many grains of sand
held in the cup of gods like water;
my skin was burning where it parted from the tree
and it bled and in the blood
I remembered you:
the dream-thing I missed and gave up
but wanted so much to keep;
will you still know me now, I wonder,
when you hear me speak in barklanguage,
cold like dew dripping down spring leaves?
And will we ever know each other again
where the tree line ends
and a new world has to begin?
Alexandra Seidel writes poems and stories of things born from imagination and dreams. Some of her work can be found in Goblin Fruit, Mythic Delirium, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. If you are so inclined you can follow Alexa on Twitter (@Alexa_Seidel) or read her blog: www.tigerinthematchstickbox.blogspot.com.