Kelly Cressio-Moeller, Mystics, 2012 (Artist Website)
Photograph
The entire world had cut to
the scene in which the widow buries her dead lover’s bones.
We’d been close to summer for over two weeks.
Every walk, I saw a gallow in the skyline.
You went to grab my hand.
Less anxious,
if I were less anxious maybe.
I’ve never in my life lived in a place with so many bloomers:
the phlox
and bee balm,
the watermelon cone blossom.
Under the midday sun they shrink back,
but if I wake early enough, after the morning’s heat
meets night’s air to make dew,
I can see them in full, petals stretching east.
It made sense at the time that we would call forth
something of a different world and wait patiently
for it to answer our questions.
About the moonlight.
About the slow response of lovers and
God’s timed expression of death.
It all seemed in sequence with our faith. Despite it being a time
with not one single satisfied pew in church.
A time where not one whale made it safely
back in the water once it was out.
Of course the comrades and I believed we could do it.
Turn a stone into a bird without anyone noticing – or maybe
with everyone noticing.
But we were late bloomers, lazy hearts.
It was easy to want life to be good for everyone. Harder
to understand why it was not.