The Breath of the Sea She stands in your kitchen serving fish from the oven with loaves she found in your empty fridge ( …it begins to hum like an ancient hymn) the fish quicken within and swim like the child you carried inside when wineskins were new and they’ll nourish your soul till you dance once again across rivers and oceans like the wind... (…a saltwater breeze stirs still curtains) you both leave in a boat that will crash on the rocks and you'll wash up on a beach without her for she’s inside a belly writing funeral songs that sound like the breath of the sea bones ringing with music sing her back to the shore your warm fires await her return (… she who can not be contained) this time, you’ll feed her fresh fish you just caught with the nets she repaired last time 'round. Tanja Stark
A few notes:
This poem is a tender story of life reborn.
Of suburban gothic and the sublime divine.
Of a woman, met by a Spirit that comes gently to her kitchen during a time of deep sorrow bearing holy miracles and mysterious provision.
Of Sophia and the Saint of Tarsus swirling with the Sign of Jonah, bringing forth loaves and fishes, like widow’s oil, amidst the carnage of a shipwrecked soul.
Perhaps, if you lean more psychological than spiritual, both women in the poem could be the same person - a body washed up on a beach, a soul descending to the depths, to be reunited once again on the shore. Who can tell?
Just know I barely dared to hope, amidst days of mourning, a cage of bones could be sung back to life.
But here I am and tonight I’m eating fish.
t.
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