By Katharyn Machan
I thought to save her, golden
among the shadows of her birth.
Her mother’s midnight cries
for rampion, her father’s stealth
into the garden I had planted
with sun and darkest warmth:
I felt her call for help even before
blood bore her into light and love
that sought to suffocate, to sever
real cord to deepest pulse of touch
with earth, with night, with fire.
Of course I took her, purest rescue,
sun carrying us day’s long reach
to give her home in tallest tower
beyond their narrow touch. Daughter
my womb could never give, companion
where foxes and hares say goodnight:
what old wives’ tale could ever hold
the honey and silk of her sacred dreams
or the truth of our shared longings?
(Originally appeared in Dogwood 2001)
