Flotsam framed by footprint by William Crawford. Image courtesy of the artist.
A desert winter, next to water, hearing nothing
but the river and the muttered morse-code
of birds through leaves, a language
that swirls in my ear, like water.
Listen.
Come summer, under a relentless sun
this wadi will crack open its thistled
silence as if silence
was all it could ever have known.
Now, in winter, the green dimples in wild
chamomile, white daisies
flooded with the fragrance of apples, only
not apples—something earthier,
baser, and bitter-smooth on my tongue. Monks
who for centuries knelt here, planted bed
after bed of chamomile, resting rough,
home-spun knees against grass
stained with the breath of vespers,
relaxing back on the scent said to expand
their prayers up and open
until they fill this blue
arc of sky. Now there is just stillness,
a silence not quiet, but alive
inside the muted grace of winter light. I
stoop in a chamomile cluster, taste one
flower, then another. They rest, white flesh
and yellow dust in my palm, dust
on my tongue, dust.
I haven’t heard a human voice for days,
have only gazed into the unlocked jaws
of caves that sweat the moisture of centuries,
and still cling to last night’s rain. And what holds
me? Once it was my mother’s body, me deep
inside, covered and smooth within secret waters
of my own. Once I arrived as fresh
as this spawned odor of decomposing leaves, algae,
tadpoles and mud. And now? Now
there is this just this desert with its branches
of aquifers that flower and feed
this river, this winter, this green,
a green so clear, so quiet I can hear it grow
and with each exhale feel the essence of what
might still be possible—a blessing,
an earth soft with new growth, so yellow, so blue,
so complicated into molecules, the air tastes of it.
~ Rachel Heimowitz
Rachel Heimowitz is the author of the chapbook, ‘What the Light Reveals’ (Tebot Bach Press, 2014.) Her work has appeared in Poet Lore, Salamander, Crab Orchard Review, and Prairie Schooner. She was recently a finalist for the COR Richard Peterson Prize and she has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize. Rachel received her MFA from Pacific University in Spring 2015.
