Tiqvah
By Bethany Wallace
Coffee fueled, I channeled
my inner morning Martha,
busily buzzing about. I fed
babies: chicks, bunnies, kitties.
Hands gathered speckled
brown eggs, feet covered in
clods, wet clumps of grass clippings.
Now, call Mother. I sighed,
collapsed in a damp
lawn chair, coated with dew.
I dialed–silence.
“Hear Me.”
Yes.
Martha moved over; Mary
pulled up an empty seat.
My sore neck craned
to watch song birds
sparkling in tree tops, woods
enveloped in chirping sunlight.
Tilted just so, my dark pupils
scored a singular red leaf
falling.
Halfway between such great heights
and heavy underbrush, its blaze flickered,
suspended by spider silk,
reignited with winding twists,
turns, gilted glides.
“See.”
The miracle, I saw,
was not the leaf
clinging tightly
or even
the thread
holding the leaf
to the tree
but that the Tree
holds everything.
Written 9/5/19