Arc of the Covenant

Above, the forsythia arced, its vigil done,
its yellow childhood yielded. Green held all
in a network snood: July’s blue air, the calls
of yesterday’s friends. I lay on my back; above
me branched a basket; the alleyway a Nile.
I waited, a female Moses-child among
the reeds for Pharaoh’s daughter. My people must
go free from this fertile land, this silent mind.

Above, the forsythia arced.  In that tunnel that smelled
of tomcat and earthwork trenches freshly dug
for plastic Cossacks, stalls for the horses of Tsars
of Russia, their forelegs insouciant, ever-enthralled
in prance—and never did they sleep—in that cave
I hid to practice different voices as boys
would load and cock toy rifles, I said the name
of God: as the groan of a glacier’s thaw; as the melt
of cherry ice on a picnic bench in June;
as the cube that rings against the glass; as the sear
of snow in winter, hot upon my cheek;
as a sudden snow hoards first things in its heart.
My finger drew an ache around my breast.
A ladybug crawled from beneath my hiked-up shirt,
unshelled her wings in a fizz, was born to air.

My childhood lives eternal, an always still
an always moving promise silent and said,
a covenant that lets me ride
toy horses into psychic darkness, calling me
to say the name of God: as the squirrel’s plea
for longer summers; as the revel of gnats around
the kitchen sink; as the certainty of death;
as the failure of words. My hand against my thigh
supports my aging bones upstairs to sleep.
Again a child, and borne by breath, to dream
that when I die, I write again each time
some soul exploring reads this paper scrap,
I’ll meet with them, recalling meaning shared
in God’s forever, past the arc of time.

-Kitty Yanson