Bahloo

~ For Aunty Gloria Matthews

bahloo

I am watching you watch me

with light carried by voice gentle

voice soft

voice to call all my world of sound of sight

bahloo

I have turned around the sun

and turned in to you

and left as much of my blood in the soil

as my blood is the soil

in tree hollow

and above the stars

these crowded earths

have pressed against the other

as they always do

are flown between

in hum in caw in gahr

in spirit shard

as you teach

in and against me where

I am never as small                  as I remember

where I might wake cold

might wake quiet

might carefully make

            the life I don’t get

            the home I don’t know

or I can choose something else

and be it or not

but always answer the voice

with always,

I will be yours

and carry yours

sing it back

slip crescent and wane

like       fingers in my hair

like       blood gift to soil

like you made a star in her

that mapped me to myself

bahloo

I am only edges at your light

and I thank you for your dew

for your pale face

how you dance upon the river

how you follow me home