Old Mother Goose, when
She wanted to wander,
Would ride through the air
On a very fine gander.
Soon it will be time.
And when I tell you
there is nothing else to hold me here
it is not for lack of love.
Dear ones,
I love you more than ever.
It is just that my feet,
so bound to ground,
are coming loose
and often now my steps
catch air, lift
in ways I barely remember.
And along the horizon the sky is full
of geese, slight bits
shaping and reshaping
into arrows.
From this distance
they are vessels of silence:
air entirely.
I breathe it in, slow long pulls.
The longing pulls them close.
Time was I flew through air and was air,
knees and knuckles locked
in downy quiet.
Oh, the back that carried me.
I hear his wingbeats now,
returning, and I am ready
to find the tip of that farthest forward arrow,
ready to become the sharp point
that traces sky,
piercing every too-far horizon
like a breath.
–
Karen Bjork Kubin has been exploring the tensions and connections between music and language for as long as she can remember. A violinist by training, her poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Spillway, Whale Road Review, Rock & Sling, Ruminate, and Relief, among other publications.