un redacted...

where in the smoothest light
the way is clear to travel

no frightening, blocked staircases
up which I chase myself in terror

no more dreams smashed
before I dream them

the legacy of no expectation
I hang like a coat in a closet

though honestly purchased
it is no longer right for any season of mine

it is instead, a well worn remnant,
like a crumpled leaf from the autumn of my youth

I no longer choose to wear it
to gird me from the sunlight

pouring in from windows
that I have opened myself…

Lucy Meskill

Mistle Thrush...

my small world
expands outward
the more I look in
and there, drawn close,
a bird on a secluded nest
your love amazes me
when I really see it
the way a heart-shaped
cloud, builds upon the wind
becoming on blue
fully formed
just as I look up

Lucy Meskill

Nycteris...

just as a red winged black bird
you ramble the berry crammed
and thorny hedgerows singing
in the half-light your plaintiff tune
recalling the sound of rain and the
persistent warble of distant thunder 
the phantom music of resonant drums
played in battles fought long, long ago
I picture you with crimson wine berries
cupped between your brave hands
those hands that combed the lanolin
coated sheep born in your barn
and milked the sweet goat nectar
that you fed to your babies;
and like the dark raven that you
are, scanning the cloud filled skies
dreaming, eyes half closed, tears
forming at their corners, you
soar over fields of viridian green;
I see you lighting candles whose flames
flicker golden like prayers through darkness
queen of the night, shaman fire tender,
I remember you holding babies to your breast
in confident arms just made for nurture
the wine of your love trickles like the blood
of berries, deep and sweet through your tribe
I love you for ever and for always sister moon…
 lucy meskill

I squirrel, a dream...

there are acorns in the street
I see them clearly
from where I am standing
large and wood grain polished
some whole, caps attached
others broken open
revealing the spilled secrets
of nutmeat liberated
time passes without judgment
soft clockworks clicking
cars drive over and around
as I wait, I wait, I wait and watch
learning by heart their shapes
loving their contents from the curb
until you, you, you driving
stop and say, simply
hands on the wheel at two and ten,
"take all the time you need"
and I do
my red winter coat
billowed out like a basket
I gather slowly without apology
and once again on the curb
my strong arms happily full
I stand there contented
as I watch you make the turn
driving past me slowly
with the smile of a mother who
buttoning up well
the snowsuit of her beloved child
opens joyfully the door
of her home to reveal
snow-day perfection gleaming
un-driven in the street
on a crisp, sunny winter's day...
lucy meskill

Oh leaf...

by what other lamp
would I read thee
in these precious
darkening days
your softly encoded
cipher glimmering, listing
in the burnt orange
autumn cocktail light
Oh incandescent brevity
chromatic symphonic
rarefied in transit
as earthward you slip...

lucy meskill

greenland...

tweezing,
instead of
dumping
the good
out from
the bad
I, reformed,
recycle
the yes I do
from
the no I don't,
thank you,
anymore,
am happy
living
in the,
somewhere
in-between,
in that
invisible
greening,
steady land
of
close your eyes
and
click your heels
that I now
gleefully
call home...

lucy meskill

enkindled...

weaning myself
from the usual darkness
insuperable and unkind
un-practicing sadness
like a tree-chained dog
now able to unwind
the quick-sand, slip-step
into pea-soup party light
is the road which I un-travel
up this path from endless night
the tuck-in, take-nothing picnic
spread upon the lawn
is the party I un-throw
mole eyes blinking in the dawn...

lucy meskill

in the beginning...

and the god that made us
to be the needle with which
it pierced the fabric
of its incredible loneliness
could not help but fashion us
stitch by stitch in its own
incredibly lonely image and likeness 
and when it saw all of creation
mirrored and flowering
in billion-fold isolation
beneath the mantle
of its amazing and infinite love
god became all at once
and for the first time afraid...

lucy meskill

moving day...

 

my mother's house was a beautiful home
warm, enchanting, full of laughter, wisdom
and pain as she bore eight welcome strangers
that she claimed as her daughters
over a bridge twenty years long, Mary to Lucy,
naked and screaming through wide open doors;
she was always tending garden
roses, lilacs and tulips grew around her
as birds sang in the trees that she had planted
and people were ever drawn to her edges
like lost bees to nectar; she was always
feeding someone from the ample larder
of wisdom and understanding in her attic
stored in boxes which never gathered dust;
she had so many stories about Brooklyn
and the cold-water flat where her two
blind parents raised she and her brothers
about her father and his musician friends
piling coats on top of children in their beds
on band-practice nights and of music
warm and beautiful, drifting into their bedrooms;
about trips to Coney Island and picking up shells
about how the sand and surf "spoke" to her;
My mother was always ironing and folding
sewing and mending, cooking and cleaning,
talking and laughing,  so that no one even
noticed that her basement had been flooding
beyond the hope of bailing, and on the day
in her sixty-third year, that the one and only
unwelcome stranger who ever entered her home
moved completely in, and she moved out,
the wind blew unceasingly clouds and sunshine
in furious succession like a movie reeling
dramatically fast forward to the solitary moment
when her house was left empty and it lay there
weeping like a baby where softly white sheets
had gently held her,  just a moment ago...

lucy meskill

dance duckling, dance...

 

the flip side of the slip slide
hot shuffle of the day
bridesmaid of the hit side
only the lonely will play
while dancing in darkness
in our own embrace
we fathom the depth
of this lonely place...

lucy meskill