Walk with just a little sway in their orange hips,
tapping out “Freedom!” on an overcast day
in the Tsavo savannah where I once walked,
long before I knew much beyond how to
make a mean marinera sauce for pennies.
Now what do I know beyond this teal glass
of iced water, the world reflected
in that same light that lifts asparagus
toward the sun after three years underground?
Who was that girl marveling at giraffes
half a life, half a world away from this woman,
back when her worry stories were simple
cotton shirts worn so finely that holes appeared
before the moths could get to them?
What is she handing me, life over life
bleeding, shining, and shadowing through itself
like yesterday’s weather that makes
the storms of tomorrow clear?
Where will she go next when she wakes
from a dream of the black forest in Colorado,
taking a step out of bed and the forest floor,
all her knowing overwhelmed
by the smell of ponderosa pine?
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, PhD, 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate, is the author of 24 books, including How Time Moves: New & Selected Poems; Miriam’s Well, a novel; and The Sky Begins At Your Feet, a memoir. Founder of Transformative Language Arts, she offers writing workshops and coaching. Her poetry has been widely published.
