Song For Your Journey

- for Karenne Wood

Heart battered as an old tree,
skin stretched to hold each year –
inscribed with the initials
of those who have loved you,
scarred characters too deep to erase:
imperfect letters, perfect.

This tree’s bark knows the iron blows
of despair, but still guards
what’s inside: all the circular years
spreading like ripples
from a pebble thrown into the center
of a lake with no name.

At dawn, mist swathes the lake in long soft breaths.
A Great Blue heron
spears the water, shimmering bass brave
the mysterious air in pursuit
of solace, and somewhere at the core
of this poem your soul

quests like a damselfly, skitters across
a wide blue absence.
Friend, let the slim glitter of wings
carry you into sunrise where time
spins its spiraled arms, calls you
dear heart, darling, daughter –

and all of your branches burst into leaf,
one shining green prayer

at a time.