To Be East

Dickinson and her nameless need.

April reels with birdsong and the hyacinth bouquet of what must come first. The Grand River floods and so our village carries life a little higher. The muck fields blacken before disappearing under waveless coves. I watch my town awaken and how they will work and work and work until winter cuts off their hands and binds their feet.

Finally, enough warmth to wash the windows. The joy of seeing more clearly!

The dog takes my spot in the patio chair and curls up into a rose-gold veneration of peace. Supposedly this is enough. Crocuses finish as the daffodils dawn, and soon the tulips will reassure our dutch hamlet that God loves this Holland too. But do I?

There is water here but the sea – always the sea. She asked me to go with her to Maine's shores in June. Once again the plans rise on their own to be east. The wind moves my hair a little and carries with it any expectations I ever had in regards to knowing any more than I do now.

My love of Moroccan décor – golden lights throwing shapes into the spiced night, the incense of bodies and perfume and sandalwood and coriander curling like a necklace against the skin, the beat of the marketplace strumming the depths of my secrets. North Africa percolates and it feels good to drink it down.

The moon arrives in full and I am rapt with this hue. He gets all of me. Gauzy cloud cover adding upon itself until the cotton glow blurs to a creamy hum. We see the world this way and that, but lovely one, when we close our eyes and it all fades to black, we are nothing more than everything – everything – everything.