A Blessing

You're afraid I will hold it against you, leaving
in this dying season, a wreath in the campo santo of love.
In the hush of your departure I hear
the whisper of us
up from the oyster bed, flying
wing and wing into the wrist
of consciousness.

Sorrow can be as wild as the oxeye, as stubborn
as the wild pink. But I will not
drink at the river of forgetting, or curse you,
or tether you with need. I am a woman
rising, like water, like helium. I bless you
for lightness, for hydrodynamic power,
for oracular sight.

I bless you for the dance, the leap
I thought I had perfected, until our arabesque
into celestial time. I bless you for breaking me open.
I bless you for love that cannot be domesticated.
I bless the oxblood that runs in your veins,
I bless the wild root of you,
I bless the warrior and the king.

Blessing you, I let you go. Autumn is time
to plant wildflowers, queen of the prairie, yarrow.
This is how love grows, like a perennial,
like a premonition, like a miracle.

Deborah Tobola




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