Free No Ordinary Place by Pamela Porter Page A

sane.

     
She sings
    after her mother closes the book
    and rises without kiss or touch
    and descends the stairs
     
of her madness.
    The child cups her hands,
    breathes onto the sparrow
     
and holds it to her chest

    when the mother’s rage
    sends her hiding under the bed,

    into the night of the closet,
     
or high in the downy
    blossoms of the mimosa,

    and the little common bird
    quickens its breath
    until calmed in the curl of her fingers.

    Always she vows
     
to protect the bird.
    She strokes the timid head,
    feels the heat of its sides
     
on her cheek

    and sings, believing
    that the song, if sung perfectly
    over many days and nights,
     
will lift her mother
    from the black room of her mind,
    will lead her into light.

This Journey, Child
     
The child grew old
    watching her parents remake the world.
    They looked into her eyes and told her
    what she saw did not happen,

    as though in a moment the moon
     
turned its back,
    leaves clambered up from the dirt
    and locked themselves to the tree,
    as though petals scattered by night’s rain
     
retook their places as the rose.

    All the things that did not happen
    collected in the dark place
     
beneath her bed
    and entered her dreams as she slept.
    Someone calling and calling,

    her father, alone in a village far away,
    whose name she counted
    on the fingers of her small hands,
    whose heart she held in the cup
     
of her small heart,
    the father who whispered like wind
    among the silken blossoms
    of the mimosa, The journey, child,
    will be long .

    Beyond hills, and shadow,
    on the other side of the rain,
    girl who tumbled
     
from God’s coat pockets
    into their hands, their need, the barren
    ground of their love,
     
I promise you
    this journey will be long,
    your true home another country
    between morning and despair,
     
between trespass and grace.

    Child, speak your truth.
     
There is no night
    that you were not first born into.
     
There is no sky
    that is not already inside you.

Astonished Heart
    I lay down at night and wakened
    to the darkening of the world.

    Beneath a sky of slate I chant
    the liturgy of autumn, light
    grown weary after its toil
    of ripening, coaxing
     
the myriad blossoms open,
    the wheat to turn to gold.

    I read the gospel according to trees.
    It says: Give away
     
all that you have,
    make yourself destitute, bereft,
    but first you must become as fire .

    This is the first lesson.

    From childhood I learned
    the proverbs of rain
    and of her sister, grief,
    the frail pages stiffened
     
from weather:
    Grief can drown you.
    Rain returns all things to earth .

    This is the second lesson.

    Once there was a child,
    someone’s daughter.
    She folded her grief
     
into paper boats,
    sent them out on the water.

    She folded her tears
     
into paper birds
    and let them fly from her hands
    into the rain-dark sky.

    The birds had eaten the path
     
to her lost father.
    She left bits of bread wherever she walked,
    that he might come.
    She held the last crust in her fist,
    and when she slept she tucked her fist
     
beneath her pillow.

    She named him Wind. Starry Night.
    She named him Rain on Parched Ground.
    She prayed a small girl’s prayer.
    She made him into light, a candle
    that flickered and made shadows of itself,
    and she recited the parable
     
of light:
    There was once a love made manifest
    in a crust of bread
    crushed in a child’s fist.
     
Eat, child, eat,
    that you become as flame .

    I lie down at night and name the darkness.

    You didn’t know, my Father, you didn’t know
     
the years of my hunger.
    My fingers curled around you.
    I held you under my pillow
    near the compass of my heart,
    north star of my longing.

    So much I keep there still:
    the frayed scarf of your voice,
    the curious little birds of your eyes,
    mountains, rivers, the creased
     
and faded map
    I didn’t know I carried.

    I lie down and hear the wind
    sing its hymn to the dying light,
    unlock the leaf from the tree,
    fray the tattered cloth of the