Wonder Writings

Issue 1.4 Autumn-Winter 2005

Reconciliation
Faith Vicinanza

After miles of bramble, thicket that tears

at pant leg and cheek, I stand at the rocky

precipice, look out to the widening

blue. I know well what is behind me

but will not turn to what has been

as voyeur of the hurts, the disappointments

of my life before now. When, at last, I listen

to my own voice calmly command me

to the edge, I do not look down. I do not

question. I do what is necessary, lean

into the open and all that tethers me

cannot accommodate the weight of my fall;

there is no pull of bindings snapping free;

I cannot hear the voices of my children

calling me back; no history of mine unanchors

itself that it might follow me into this place

where there is only falling, this body, thought,

a rush of air and nothing more. From time

to time I worry, what have I done, but I

am falling and I forget that there is anything

but this and I sleep. In dream, you come

as Daedalus – voiceless, outstretched wings

of feather and wax; you come as falcon,

as hummingbird, barn owl, all before I wake

and I marvel each time and study you

and study you, my dead brother. I wake

into what I have awakened into for days,

days becoming weeks. I have forgotten

when it was I left. There is only this falling,

this body, thought, a rush of air, my hair

forever fluttering in my face, and, now, this

escalating obsession with feathers. My

shoulders ache. The ache tires me. I sleep,

dream of plumage, of wings, but even in dream,

a knife-like pain persists. A gust of wind

sends me tumbling. I wake to falling, faster,

to this torrent that tangles wings into a straight

jacket. The bulkiness pulls me askew. Air

tears at my shirt, cloth breaks down, separates,

pulls away from my body. My face stings.

Feathers thrash against thigh. I cannot right

myself. At last, exhausted, I once more sleep,

dream. You come as condor and I envy you
your buoyancy. I study you, wings folding,

unfolding. Arms span the current of air

and steady me. I breathe in the horizon,

remember. I dreamed myself blue heron

when I was a child but I could not carry you

nor myself from the madness. At seventeen,

I packed what little I owned, moved

ten states away, left you

to plan your own escape.

We forever lived too far apart

and you will never come again except in dream.

What did you dream yourself when we were young?

I know it wasn’t this, dead at forty-three. Now,

there is only the current of air that feels as solid

as earth once did beneath my feet, this soaring,

thought. I am sated, sleep, dream of cliffs,

dream of my children. I dream of going home

but I am infatuated with feathers,

the dark gray of them, the black, the rust,

the feel of air above, beneath. How can I

ever go home? You will never be there.

I wake. I sleep. I dream of lakes, tributaries,

pine forests, ledges where distant mountains

secrete sunlight and give it back. There

is nothing, now, except this soaring, this

rush of air, a rising belief that I should return

home. Each new day, I find solace in the sound

of air pressed into obedience by these wings.

I am enamored of the simple cadence

of my existence, with dawn, with dusk,

with sun’s light reflected off a sky wet with rain.

I grow more and more obsessed with the sheen

of feather, the strength of muscle

in my shoulders, my back. I miss my children

less and less. I sleep, dream. You come

as the brother I am mourning. You want

to council me against forgetting

but all you can say is go home.

What of these wings, this uncomplicated

life apart? What of the life I left behind

that will attach itself to me like an assemblage

of leeches? Who are you to advise me

to go home, you who stayed away

those seven years, forgot how I loved you,

forgot us all. I tried to reach you but you

retreated deep into Alaskan woods,

backed away until you believed

there was no one left to love, not me,

not yourself, not the frenetic women

you let console you now and then.

You try to tell me that forgetting feels like

freedom but it doesn’t last, that the past

is always one step ahead, waiting.

I refuse to hear you. How can I really

ever go home? Is this what you wondered

in the end? Did you hear me call to you

the way I hear the voices of my children

and remember? They are calling my name

the way I called yours but you turned away

even though you promised you would stay.

You left and you left me to clean up

after you. In dream, I see them, my children,

in a house, our house, but not our house.

In dream, I perch in the ash, the one you fell

in the back yard, four stories of dead wood

that stood precariously close to those things

I loved. In dream, I watch them, listen.

In dream, they are young. I am missing them.

I wake wanting them near me. I sleep, dream

myself woman, mother, dream myself envious

of the crow, aching for the feel of air

beneath remembered wings. I dream myself

gazing up at the night sky reminiscent.

I dream myself loved but cannot say

that being loved is enough. It wasn’t enough

for you. I dream myself consoled

by the laughter of my children’s children,

by the awe in their faces when they catch

the faintest outline of wings

in the shadows just past where I stand.

I dream myself tethered and always wanting.

I wake to voices calling my name

and I answer.

Faith Vicinanza, a poet and educator, lives in Western Connecticut.