Bearings

I love the moments of dark before sunrise

as the year turns inward

the house with you asleep

and my hold rippling outward

to daughters in their places, sister

and brothers, who began with me

drinking milk and running into the world

where night came with its Milky Way

~

and in the mountains six days ago

with sister and brother

I saw the Way again as once

and the Big Dipper on the horizon ready

to one day scoop us up

and I was—we were—shiny, and earth

turned beneath us, injured but asleep,

dreaming Himalayas

~

and there is this—sometimes I know dark

in my throat, as when just having left

the hospital room where your brother lay, gauze

twisted high above his opened head, a Trojan soldier

crumpled after battle in more than sleep,

I murmured, go back in to him,

say good-bye before we leave—

and you did