Lindi-Ann Hewitt-Coleman

(for my dad
on father’s day)

i made it on sourdough
lightly toasted with butter
brewed the tea in an empty house
east light slanting through windows
spilling crossways to the grain
of the table so old now
years of hard growth
stands in ridges
between the softness of spring wood
long worn away.
knots wait like islands in synoptic flow
that fingers have traced through time.

i take a bite
silence holds
six years slip away
no rush of cold air
or strange flashing lights
i just chewed and swallowed
and he was there
with me at the table
light so much just so
sketching plans – teasing
arguing about north
and which way the road runs.
so i was thinking, i would say…
breakfasts were always project meetings
pens in hand
sandwiches and tea
turning wild dreaming
into hammer and wood and nails
paths and ponds and gateways
scraps of paper that have grown
into garden and farm without him.
because the world was turning faster
and there was still so much to do.

this light
that reaches through leaves
to touch warmth of sun on skin
light that has traveled
the far away sky of winter
has it known me before
did i drift embryonic
stardust tadpole mermaid child
through mothers and grandmothers
twisting dna stands on nimble fingers
making thread to weave this living whole
learning the beat of a new heart
and a new one again
until these threads have pulled taut
through time
and a grandmother breathes a story to life
on the wall of a cave still in darkness.

Origin Story

green gazing through glass doors
as rain pounds ecstatic
on ginger lily leaves
my foot holds
its steady rhythm
for the wheel that turns
and turns clockwise
for the thread that pulls
and twists its magic –
eyes averted
from spindle whorl and bobbin
so my hands may teach me
what my heart already knows.
ancient wrinkled beautiful
the three spinners sit with me
one to guide my foot
one to guide my hands
and one to guide my heart.

Learning

i have eaten of this fruit before
tasted knowing
in its sticky sweet transience
and wanted more.
always more
like i had never known thirst
until i drank that holy water
never seen
before that opening of light.
and i try to remember
in all day walking waking,
used my knuckle bones as rosary
to name the counting moons
and yet the moment eludes me
like mist to the rising sun.
i’ve laid paths with whispered prayers
and then forgotten how to walk them,
called my invocations
to the space between billowing stars.
yet its the forgetting and
half remembered –
fragments of fractured light
that allows this life to live.
and still the longing walks me
and thirst
claims me as its own.

by chance or fate
or grand design
i am here this morning
on this small gravel road
that sweeps along
tall trees and soft heather
opening on this hilltop
to the distance of valleys
and mountains beyond.
about to pass this moment
of jagged purple horizon
and orange combed clouds,
i stop the car
before the road dips
back into trees
and bear witness
to the rising
of the sun.

soft evenings
picking herbs
amongst the clutter
of settling noises
and the solitude of songbirds
calling down the night,
while the sea mist
claims these hills.
claims them round and quiet –
tree by valley tree
it comes
until i too am claimed
by ocean breath
and dark trees
and hills
that are my home.

i stood not far from where he sat in the shade
shoulders stooped rubbing his brow
i saw his loneliness in the gesture of his hands
the rise and fall of his sigh
and my heart leaned open towards him.
for a while we breathed the same forest.
i did not approach him
offer to console
he remained untouchable –
separated by oceans of otherness
me – woman protector of my realm
and he – wild animal
lone baboon.

Chance Encounter

driving the whispered road
the soft grey line
between lagoon and hill
night and day
while the sky gathers light
and night exhales
its earthbound mist
that drifts without moving
across silent water.
new from their roost
egrets fill the sky
and i, swept by the sight
of five hundred beating wings
white feathers gathering silver
from the stillness of water,
am born again and again
into the beauty of this world.

there is light enough
on the top of the hill
to walk barefeet
in the garden.
light enough
to pick the greens
before closing garden gates
on the evening.
there is light enough
to find my way home
breathing the silence
before starlight.

i would like to tell you
its all good
that the stars are still beautiful
without you
that the night air
damp with season’s change
still breathes with forest
and sings on my skin
in voices of night.

i would like to say
the golden orb
still casts her web
to catch autumn sun
and days stretch
from mountain to sea
whether or not
you are here.

and i try to make truth
live in these words
and i try
to make truth live.
but these precious days
drift into years
and still
you are not here.