She sees her man high-tail it down
the tide
as bitter winds of spring birth in
the year;
the dead-bed logs drag side by
bleeding side
across the waves, across her
rising fear.
Another voyage to familiar shore;
the wood beneath her hand is dead
and cold;
around her grieving body, wrenched
and raw,
the midwife sky tucks terror fold
by fold.
In storms of pain the night is
ripped apart,
the waters break, the hemlocks
shriek, are drowned;
hope whimpers, weakens, in her
aching heart,
then settles, still as stone,
making no sound.
The
empty sheets of sorrow shroud the bed;
her
home a wind-rocked cradle for the dead.
(January,
1988)
