To the steadfast
The reliable
The open-hearted
The ones who give and give
With whom I never have to pretend
Whom I need never fear
To the ones who brighten when they see me
Laugh at my bad jokes
Appreciate what I am
The ones with whom
I am safe
The ones who are
So easy to love
Thank you is not enough
But it’s all I have.
You are my shelter
In a windblown world.
Starlings murmurate
Three hundred birds in a bush
Chirp a rolling boil
We are more
Than the sum of our parts
Put us together like legos
But you cannot make us walk, talk
One day
If science keeps progressing
We will learn how to make a body walk and talk
We will learn how to make someone live, think, feel
And you know what?
It will
Still
Be magic.
It’s not what you cannot do
That makes life a wonder.
It’s what you are
And no amount of knowing detracts from that.
She who lives
Worrying on death
Forgets life
Lean inwards, inwards
Rummage around your imagination
The back of the cupboard where you can’t see
But where all the most interesting things
Linger
The deeper you get,
The dustier
The mustier
The moldier
The rustier
Rotten things which crumble in your hands
Hold them reverently, or lose them.
A bat skeleton, tiny, frail, bones like needles
A toy car, flaking paint, tacky orange grease
A tin of crumbly letters
Written in your grandmother’s hand
Newspaper cutouts but why
Index cards of recipes gone by.
Keep going further, if you dare
Deeper, deeper
Blindly fumble
Something might bite you
Or you might uncover
A mystery covered in tar
A peat moss mummy
An old god, carved
A thing hearkening back to the dawn of humanity
A thing so true it has remained
In the back cabinets of minds for generations
Safe from the light.
You know they are there
Though you try very hard to forget.
Sarah D. Silvey 