home
prev next

      
THE WORD IS

Today is clear
and I have climbed a steep highway
to peak country, where mountains ring
with mad music the Old Ones chant - 
music I have heard of but not heard before.
I rhyme along sky-edge, follow goat trails,
scan fossils in rocks older than man.  A word,
a word I must have evades me.  Below me now,
cars, toys, skim the pencil line of highway
beside a green-blue cord of river.  Among trees
and rocks I am unseen.

By a mountain creek I see hoofprints -
webbed, cloven hieroglyphs identifying
creatures of passage.  No tracks show
where I came from.  Baring my feet
I stamp a five-toed signature in the soft mud - 
Continuing my search,
I descend, descend into a valley.

Now sky loses itself in green - mosses, evergreens.
Shadows of wild things flick across my vision while
I search, search for the word.  On tongue-tip now, 
it remains silent.

From a black sky, wind hurls raindrops at me.
After this baptism, I trail elk paths
deep into a ravine.  Sitting under a dying poplar
I pick lavender snow petals from wood violets,
encircling the tree bole -
the word reveals itself.

Shouting it over and over, I race down the mountain side,
love knocking hard at my heart, toward home.

There a small bird lies on the patio
beneath a picture window.  Soft, dead fathers
shimmer green and gold.  I lift it gently -
its head circles uselessly
and the word screams into a question
Why?  Why?

      

Return to top of page

Copyright 1989 by Mildred A. Rose,

all rights reserved.
Originally published by The Music House Press.
No part of this collection may be reproduced,
except in short reviews, without the
author's permission.

Feb 07, 2012, 03:18 PM CST

RMS Publications
BFS Media Group
EM.CA Internet Services