inanna’s dream of daily life

 

it’s lonely at the top of creation

my thinning sheath weary of holding the queen of heaven

the royal we peels her layers down to i

mortal flesh my peerless caul

i gather and wrinkle as though i were

a garment one could live without

 

in all my earthly queendom

only the deep green autumn grass is at rest

browning in the slant of sun

i want to turn and fall with the leaves into the forever sky

butterflies and yellowjackets having at least

lived one moment in the heat hang by one last

relenting strand before me

my craving toward deliverance tugs

on the silken seeds of dandelion and aster

maiden’sbower

ironweed and goldenrod ghost themselves in my eyes

relinquish their colours to the blush of trees

bluebottle gentian nod

 

in this harmless dimension i might have lived

greying like all earthbound things

moulted down to essentials

keeping only what i could become among the fallen

layered with the leaves waiting for snow and forgetting

oh cover and soften me in the darkening of the year

i want to be as nothing but the wild shift of weather

to walk with the vast demented mother talking to herself

no longer alone