The thing I
feared the most was done, and there
was no one
near, no one to carry me to somewhere I
might sleep
away the pain. But when I raised my head
again− a
reflex, really, not anticipating anything around
my patch of
ground to stir my interest, certainly no object
worth the
energy of creeping toward − I found myself
the center of a
circle keeping me between the earth and
sky, defying
gravity, without my straining, straining not to
disappear. I
wondered fleetingly if it might be a sort of
birth, this
unfamiliar fearless laxity. Oh, well. They had
of course
mistaken me for someone else. But no, I couldn't
make it stick.
They knew me perfectly, I was convinced, and
they had taken
me in spite of it, or maybe it was why... for
pity's sake. I
wasn't capable of pride nor could I then have
put a name to such
a mystery of grace, such generosity of
spirit that was
meant to never slip away. I hadn't the
vocabulary,
till I recognized the thing I’d always known,
the fallow way you
know that there are other suns and
galaxies: the
ancient, great, and silent sisterhood that
gathers in its
own, just as the full moon summons to itself
the tides, as I
had come, as I was lifted, given wings.
There was a
momentary quivering, the air around me,
sparrow on a
wire, delivering the final spasms of a storm
whose center
has been spent. A flash, a surge-- then even
memories of love
betrayed were burned away, and what
remained was
new and clean, anticipating, like an April
morning after
rain. Because I could, I flew, light as a
thistle seed,
for I was going home as to a mother who has
prayed, has
wished, has ever waited, nearer than I knew
and patient, as
the venerable oak waits for the weary to
require its shade.
