At dawn the world is growing.
Bird songs lead the heart into
the secret spaces between the
sometimes shuddering leaves.
Dewdrops surprising toes with cold
open the senses to sudden noises.
The growing light uncovers frontiers
and the new warmth softens her shell.
In the waking, the beckoning into another day,
she walks down the 2 steps, off the open porch,
and can't help bending down,
and touching the new pink roses.
Among all this clear newness,
why does that kiss still hang in the air?
So many years, so many awakenings,
even so many loves, and still his kiss hovers about,
light like a hummingbird, close as her own quiet lips,
and as much a part of her as her own heart anymore.
His name comes only with effort now.
His visage wavers and fades in deference
to that moment that quickened the temple in her heart.
Why a kiss? That awakening was more than
a 1000 dawns. That kiss cured a blindness
she didn't know she had.
That kiss birthed a woman she always thought
was someone else.
That kiss told her who she would be, forever.
And no one else knew. Not even him.
Now she walks the braided path
of memory and birth.
Each moment riding the wave of wakening
and feeding off the seed of sweet, sweet, memory.
And where once she fretted that she should ever
be free to move beyond this crèche in her heart,
today she walked almost carefully down the garden path,
feeling the earth push up through her sinewy arches,
through her balanced hips,
through her softly dancing shoulders,
and out the oh so tender tips of her life filled fingers.
Her aching wonder was finally ripened,
and now her knowing emerged anew.
It was not the kiss. It was her soul being touched.
It was the awakening of the promise,
her promise, to herself,
and even, as one day she would discover,
to all sisters that choose the light.
That is why it would not go away.
All the times of desire, unreserved and simple wanting;
the prayers, the wishes, the searching, the pulling back;
all of this beautiful drama, had just been nurturance
for this moment of quiet, endless awakening.
And now, as her gaze was pulled
into the dewdrops on the rose petals,
as her soft hair blew across her forehead,
as she felt the moist grasses,
again, and again, wetting her toes,
she knew, this very day, right now
with the hummingbirds for witness,
that she could finally love without
the smallest speck of compromise.
And Dawn smiled herself into another morning.
(Spring 01 - Tom C.)
