I Miss You

(January 3, 2011)

It is the month of ravens, the season

of liquid light.  It has been a long year

for golden tigers, and I cannot bear

to be without you for another day.

My tracks freeze in their place, there is no more

getting away.  Even my shadow is

brittle.  In the great spruce behind our house,

three ravens squeak rusty nails out of iced

bark with their cawing, change positions as

they ladder up branch by branch, but the one,

I think female, is first to find the top.

Yesterday, after the snow came, the sun,

behind a wispy smudge of cloud, shimmered

dreamy and moonlike, and a lone eagle

wove its way across the steel wool sky like

the shuttle of a loom.  It is the month

of coal, of burning cold.  The charred raven

brings its gift of fire to all those who

freeze.  The crystal sunlight turns into ash.

I am left to ask, “What brings you to me

in the night?  Will the knit of need and knot

of time hold only when arms and legs are

woven tight?”  My fabric frays without you.

Here in the slant burn of the winter sun,

in the black and gray grit of frozen thaw,

I climb the stark tree of mind, limb by limb,

into the murky sky.  Each day away

from you, I ache in the hollow of my bones.

___________________________________

See the vidoe version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0odVZQSWwgM