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