KAYLA'S ASHES
The mahogany box is heavy
and inside you lie in a plain plastic baggie.
Oh! I cry. Oh! You must be released,
for you do not belong inside,
but instead everywhere we walked together
in this mountain cove. I dig,
bits of you lodge into my fingernails,
you are softer and finer than I imagined,
but then what would I ever imagine but
your solid body and soft fur and big brave heart?
I let you drift through my fingers
into the wind that’s come down from
the mountain ridge, and as you drift,
sunlight filters through you so that
I see layers and layers of you
and sun and light and prisms of color
that aren’t really colors at all but memories
of color; the heaviest parts of you
fall to the ground and lie bone-white bone,
but the light of light of you hovers
in the air and dances,
dances and hovers and lingers
before all of you slowly disappears,
dissolves in the cool morning air
in the cove at Killian Knob.
I am awed, then I am alone.
Good old girl. That’s my girl,
that’s my good good old girl.
7 comments:
This is a very tender piece. I like it. I answered your comment on my blog but in case you do not see it – I had read an article on the elephants’ sanctuary in Tennessee and kept their web page. They are located in Hohenwald, TN (don’t know where that is) but as I recall they don’t allow the public there. I also wonder what they do with the animals when it is cold in winter. Here is the link: http://www.elephants.com/.
Beautiful imagery... and the last two lines make me want to cry.
*smiling* thank you, Kathryn, for posting this - of course, now I am editing it in my head, going "oh, wait..." *laughing* - but, sometimes just writing what we let come out of our marrow has the most truth, huh?
THanks Vagabonde and Vicki!
Kathryn, I had to slenderize/poeticize your piece because the right margin kept blocking parts of words and ruining it. I hope you don't mine! I didn't want any part of it to be lost.
Vagabonde, thanks for the link to the elephant refuge. A friend of mine, wonderful artist, was able to do a painting of an elder elephant mothering an abandoned young elephant there. One of her friends worked at the refuge.
Hohenwald--good German name. A lot of folks in TN with German ancestry.
Yes, Vicki, the last two lines are so tender, aren't they?
Beautiful..my journey too, light, dust, peace...but not yet!!
and a poet too!! what else do you do :)
The 'good old girl' nearly killed me! What a tender tribute to her. Nicely done.
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