Tag: Wake up

It Was All Of That

Kathleen Norris

In spite of the cost of living, its still popular.

Kathleen Norris

Ascension

by Kathleen Norris

Why do you stand looking up at the skies?
.                                                        . Acts 1:11

It wasn’t just wind, chasing
thin gunmetal clouds
across the loud sky;
it wasn’t the feeling that one might ascend
on that excited air,
rising like a trumpet note.

And it wasn’t just my sister’s water breaking,
her crying out,
the downward draw of blood and bone…

It was all of that,
the mud and new grass
pushing up through melting snow,
the lilac in bud
by my front door, bent low
by last week’s ice storm.

Now the new mother, that leaky vessel,
begins to nurse her child,
beginning the long good-bye.

Mrs. Adam

By Kathleen Norris 
 

I have lately come to the conclusion that I am Eve,
alias Mrs. Adam. You know, there is no account
of her death in the Bible, and why am I not Eve?
Emily Dickinson in a letter,
12 January, 1846

Wake up,
you’ll need your wits about you.
This is not a dream,
but a woman who loves you, speaking.
 
She was there
when you cried out;
she brushed the terror away.
She knew
when it was time to sin.
You were wise
to let her handle it,
and leave that place.
 
We couldn’t speak at first
for the bitter knowledge,
the sweet taste of memory
on our tongues.
 
Listen, it’s time.
You were chosen too,
to put the world together.