Now that you’re forever
ministering wind and turquoise, ashes
eclipsed by the sea’s thrust
and the farthest tor
(I know you were always
more than my mother)—
giveaway flecks tipped and scattered
from an island palisade;
now that you’re a restless synonym
for the whistling fisherman’s
surfacing mesh,
the alluring moon’s path and progress
through a vast chaos
of unrelenting waves,
let me reveal:
in the at-a-loss days
following your scattering,
in my panoramic hotel, I found
a sun-flooded cradle—
so pristine, so spot-lit, and sacramental
I couldn’t bear to rock
or even touch it, Mother:
I marveled at the gold-leafed bars
and contours—the indomitable,
antique wood beneath, an emblem
of unbeatable hope
and prevailing tenderness—
then, for a crest-like, hallowing hour,
listen, my mourning was suffused
with the specter of your lake-calm
cascade of hair, inkwell-dark
in the accruing shadows,
your rescuing, soothing contralto,
and oh yes, Isabel,
the longed-for fluttering
of my nap-time lids:
entrancing gold
of the first revealing dawns,
the first indispensable lullabies—
from AGNI