STAR-SHINE AND SPIRIT-SPEAK

 

Open the window, so the spirits of the dying

can fly out and away, into the starry night.

May the song of the spheres serenade their passage,

moonglow seal up the opening in the veil

between their new world and ours.

Watch the early morning light

slowly outline the rosy mountains,

then faintly tinge the sky

with the pink of promise:

a new day begins, for we, the living.

This moment, as every moment,

all of the waters of the world

are traveling in riversong to the sea,

bearing life along its precipitous passage,

down the mountain slopes,

plunging over falls,

pooling in quiet eddies,

till finally it reaches the ocean's roar

and finds itself home again,

on tomorrow's shore.

There be spirits here. Come walk

in the ancient forest with me.

Hear Brother Wind whispering the shaman's song

softly through the branches of Grandfather Cedar.

If you listen closely, you will hear

him speak.

He knows those who are lost,

those who have journeyed on,

those who will return again.

He will bring the touch

of the one you have loved so well

on the evening breeze.

When the puff of wind touches your cheek,

know it was sent to you with love

from the spirit world,

to gently dry your tears.

This is an old one from 2015 I stumbled upon just now. I wasn't sure where this poem was heading when I started off. I was remembering my mother's death, and how it felt like her spirit was flying towards the window, out and away into the night.

Some time ago, my friend, whose husband had died a year before, told me she had waited almost a year for a visitation from her husband, who had made dream visits to everyone else in the family. One night she finally dreamed of him. They were talking and laughing together, in the dream, and then she started to cry and said, "But you're not here!" And she said he told her, "But I AM here," as he wiped the tears under her eyes. And she woke, still feeling the touch of his fingers on her cheek.

I have not yet found the words for the recent school shooting. Maybe I never will. 

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