Inheritance

The wind tonight is a mere
            savant in the throes

of his deep prayer again and you are here, still, 
            when I drift in,

a small bowl
            in my hands like the nest

of some unfledged darkness, your own
            bread's odor in my clothes.

Take this, woman, and eat
            it, the moon's coins uncounted

around you, the light
            laid up like hornet's

gold, shimmering in your best black wool.
            Surrender? Surrender

is nothing, 
            the negligible music of a dressage harness.

Let the wind's hands
            riffle these hymnals, their script

like flocks under pasture
            ice, their own wings

shrouding their croon.
            It is only your son

come homeward
            to lift up your long hair

from moonlight
            like the hem of a mooring rope,

broken, to fold down
            your own hands forever.

It is only the wind and the holding
            fast--the wind and the rest of it, soon.