Photo by Sara Wright
I stand
at the window
peering
through haze
gray on gray
or is it white
a tangle of
bare branches
obscure powdered
hemlocks
lining a frozen
brook
winding
her way
under
ICE
to the sea
where marble eyed
Seal stands
watch
on a stone
centering a lake
whose boundaries
remain obscure
Guardian
of Flowing
Waters
freed from
constraints
freezing
just one
her sleek
coat
a dream
shining
through
descent
each step
takes
us
deeper.
I thought
I saw
a fish?
One silver dagger
Twins with
swords
puncture
frigid air
one falls
to ground
water
petrified
by an
unearthly
chill
ever darkening
skies
blur
the force
of an
oncoming
storm
ICE a
threat
black and
white
crocheted
extremes
hidden
behind
masks
of the dead
Abstractions
don’t change
the outcome
this storm
has been
gathering fury
for years
burying
us alive
from within
best
to acknowledge
that inner
and outer
are One
the swords
at my window
and mindless
thugs,
potential killers
who roam
the streets
like poisoned fleas
shattering
wooden doors
thieves
on the run
endeavor to
obliterate
all traces
of
women
children
dogs
with
a gun.
Author’s Note: Because my choice has been not to engage with the cultural breakdown as much as possible for sanity’s sake, I do not listen to US news though I do follow the Guardian headlines for basic information. What is happening in Minneapolis boggles my mind. When Renee Good was killed, I felt like I was falling off the edge of a cliff. I still cannot comprehend the depth of the evil involved around sending a five -year-old to a detention center. Abstracting ugly truths seem to satisfy many intellectual minds. The addicts just leave the TV on all day long. Reporters repeat atrocities without one ounce of heartfelt emotion.
For good or ill, I am left to feel the anguish that others do not. I never got the filter that most people routinely use and perhaps I am also too sensitive. Equally or more disturbing are my precognitive dreams of tortured and dead people and children that began early last fall and continue unabated. In my world I dream horrors first, and then I get to live them.
Recently, I was surprised to receive an email from a column run by the local newspaper that addressed a potential (?) crisis emerging in Maine as ICE roams our streets and people are threatened or detained. Collapsing in fear is not the road I choose to travel, the primary reason for writing this poem just as the worst storm we have had this winter bares down on the state.
Silence is the rule of thumb in this area, unless it’s related to gossip or having ‘fun’, so I was caught unawares (normal for small towns, I am not singling out this area). People are being urged to be careful and to report any suspicious activity whatever that means while thugs are roaming the streets. If these men (and they are always men) hope to intimidate people, they may be succeeding frightening some. Others drag out their guns.
A note on seals. As a young woman I lived on an island with my fisherman husband and spent thousands of hours around seals who inhabited the rocky outcrops around the island slipping in and out of sea with ease. I thought of them as friends who lived in two worlds. It wasn’t until much later that I read Sealskin Soulskin, the story of a woman who lived on land and returned to the sea.
Storyline: This tale is about a seal woman whose skin is stolen by a man. She is forced to live on land until her soul withers. When she hears her soul’s call, she reclaims her skin and returns to the sea. This powerful tale symbolizes a woman’s connection to the wild, intuitive self, alerting us to the danger of losing ourselves to the dominant male culture, a threat that we must not underestimate.
(Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright – Return to Mago E*Magazine