~ after a line by Birch Dwyer
Your falling apart magnificence,
say the grandmothers
who tend the fire just for me
is what we most love about you.
You were never meant to know it all,
be it all, achieve it all, possess it all,
you were only meant to be
the beautiful being that is you.
They are dressed in long skirts,
as I have always pictured them;
they surround me with a yearning
for their child come home.
They tease not to take life
so seriously, insist that loss is
merely an illusion for my learning.
The women say they have
also seen the joy I embody
from each and every day.
She’s the one, they whisper,
the one who holds our love in her heart
and carries it forward into the future,
the one who accepted our gifts.
