It’s June now and the wind these nights
Makes me want so much I feel like a dog.
I can’t walk more than but a few steps
Without being caught by the heady
fragrance of something blooming, somewhere.
In daylight,
I squat in the garden pinching herbs;
Oregano, Spearmint, Thyme-
And I wonder at their presence in my life.
Staring at their perfect faces, I pick great fistfuls
Of palm- sized, yellow Pansies just so I can know
What the origin of their blessed, rising scent feels like in my hands—
Silken petals, smooth as milk and soft as joy is bright.
I carry them indoors and give them homes in tiny jars
to try and make my house a happy one.
Last evening on the beach I bowed before the ocean, knees sinking,
To remind myself that the firmament is always shifting.
The cool caress of sand there slipped through my fingertips like time.
As tears fell in little valleys down my sunken cheeks
The wind, like your breath in my mouth, carried salt spray to my tongue
Conjuring your name along some rutted pathway in my brain.
In your absence,
my throat will only let me utter the names of wild birds and plants.
To know I am still real, I call them out.
Dusty Miller, Starry False Soloman’s Seal, Marram Grass.
Willet, Black-bellied Plover, Great Blue Heron.
You and I both know the list could go on.
If it wasn’t so cold I could have stayed there forever just to watch and listen
because I know these things now like I once knew your skin.
And as I lay remembering, these are here before me for my eyes, my mind to grace upon.
Where are you?
Jill M. MacCormack
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