Monday 4 May 2020


First Anniversary Prayers

by Carolyn Cushing


Dear Departed One,

The evening 
became evening
became dark,
led you to Nowhere.

I knelt at that threshold
whispering all the words
I knew into Winter,
night after long night
down on my knees.
I couldn’t leave.

But Spring came and ice broke.
I mixed your ash in with the seeds,
answered soil’s call to be fed.
Prayers now in my palms,
under my nails, turning the earth.
I watched green take the field,
raise the vine, feed the bud
and blood of strawberry
opened my lips.

I walked then 
in our old places
as green turned to flame,
turned to brown,
everything fell down 
and this is the day 
you’ve been gone 
in all the seasons.

I’ve used up my prayers

A white goose rises
so close I hear air lift each feather,
the sound of earth embracing sky,
turning me into the shift
where I no longer speak
but instead listen to hear 
from the wind
from the field 
from the snow
the prayer 
you make now 
for me.


* * * * *

Carolyn Cushing is a poet inspired by nature, slightly obsessed with cells, and currently focused on the places where life and death meet. She has been a finalist for the Philbrick Poetry Award of the Providence Athenaeum (2012) and the Tarantula Poetry Contest of Pilgrimage Journal (2018). Her poetry and prose can be found at soulpathsanctuary.com.

2 comments:

  1. My breathing stopped and my jaw started its downward sag as I allowed each nuance to assault my morning stoicism, relentlessly gaining purchase. I caved when these lines broke through and grabbed my throat:

    I walked then
    in our old places
    as green turned to flame,
    turned to brown,
    everything fell down
    and this is the day
    you’ve been gone
    in all the seasons.

    ReplyDelete
  2. breathtaking, heartbreaking, gorgeous,

    ReplyDelete