Scissortails

Scissortails

(“God comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” 2 Corinthians 1:4)

My soul was indigo, ink black if you have to ask,

If you must know.

Until two scissortails cavorted against the whitewashed sky

Like adolescent children chasing each other 

Across a well-hilled grassy park. 

They were perfect in formation, a dance upon a canvas,

They were playing, prepared for mating, and they wrote

Joy across the opening sky.

But my brain has been cold ever since I sold my certainty,

And told everyone I knew, though artlessly, that we were leaving,

Driving southeast toward the vacuum of time and surety.

What the hell did they think we would live on,

How the hell did they think we would survive?

Had they never received comfort (stay a while) when

The bottom fell out and the walls closed in?

Had no one raised funds for them, put jars in every bank,

Spread the news and thanked every contribution as far as

Social media could fly?

How they hell did they think we could make it

When we left our most precious possession behind?

Why didn’t they line up and say, “Here, stay a while”,

Or “Let us get you home sooner than you can imagine.”

Yeah, keep those cards and letters coming because

So far,

The mailbox is empty of any letters addressed to me.

Why, during the previous decade of pain, no one came

And found me weeping, to sit with the spikes they could not

Understand. So, you see, some days are inky, so deeply

Indigo

My soul has nowhere to go.

We never lied about the hollow ahead, the abyss that certainly

Met us at the end of the road. We told the truth, and what’s worse

The truth was thinner than we knew.

It’s taken me a half hour each morning to learn where I am again,

It takes a shower each morning to burn away the tears from my head

And hope, at least, for scissortails or toddlers, or a letter in the mail.

Or one last effort from those who love us to get us back home.