My Dark Sister

Submerged in the viscous sea of our love
rising and falling, we sink deeper
displacing the dangerous waters
and slowly my past rises to the surface
like a salt encrusted submarine.

Behind these doors lies my childhood companion
my dark sister who has been locked away.
Caked with time and rusted on their hinges
these doors have resisted all prior attempts at entry.
But touching you opens portals long held shut.
Loneliness, coiled, eyes hooded
waits patiently to strike.

I enter the chambered rooms to feel first
the thirteen years of solitude
nourishing, contemplative
rich and pleasurable.
I see how I have wrapped myself
in the comfort of my own rhythm
rocked myself
in my own arms
drunk from the deep well
of my own source.

Behind that chamber are 18 years
strung together like a strand of pearls.
Years of knocking at the doors of hearts
begging entry.
My footsteps echo back to me
the emptiness of abandoned halls.
Memories rush in
tumbling, wrestling one another to the floor.

Laughing lovers
a marriage begun
and ended
a child born.
But always that faint thread of loneliness
growing stronger
as I make my way back
to the rooms of my childhood.

A tuning fork was struck by God.
I was the singing out in all directions.
Rushing forth
trusting to the embrace
of a matching tone.
My body alive
longing to be caught and held
aching to reverberate in union.
On I raced, and on and on.
A lifetime of seeking resonance
something willing to give me back to myself.

So I walked those country roads
cornfields and pastures
jumping ditches
flashing in the sun.
Lying on my back amid the grass
and dark black clods of dirt
I was embraced by the air
rich with bees and the odors of damp earth.
There I pleasured myself
a small girl awakening...unknowing and unafraid
never guessing that my lover
was the Earth herself.

I was a child of the goddess
no one to guide me but my one small voice.
My cat
my books
and nature my only companions.
This is where I learned to choose solitude
for solace.
Better that than feel the deep cut of loneliness
raking across my small fresh body.

No serpent
no harpy with claws
no need of fear.
She walks beside me now
courts me
my dark sister.
Reaching out a shy, tentative hand
she touches me at last.
And I am joined to my loneliness.

Tears spill
from older eyes
that have seen the years
steal away my youth.
Lying here in your arms
warm
gently rocked
I am a woman wedded to her past
my ageless song
captured by your tenderness.

7/14/00