MAGGIE


There under your waste winter sky,
Your mountains our high quiet witness,
We each held a wild winged thrumming heart
All stunned - us stunned that two birds at once
Would stun themselves in your panes of reflected real,
And standing out there, each a terrified heart in hand,
I looked at you looking at me, stunned,
And remembered how once I flew into the pane of you.

Or what I thought was you, but see now (long after
Setting the two stunned birds under your chamisa
To resurrect or not) wasn't really you but your reflection
Of something so wild and waste and beyond that,
As with Medusa, I could only bear its reflection, into which I

And we are blessed when someone is there to pick us up,
Hold us for a moment with a love both larger and less
And set us free to seek again what's wild and waste beyond.

— George Sibley, 24 January 2004 ©