East Kill Valley

After a thin lifetime,
the only center is
light reflected from often-safe bays,
and in the distance
the horrifying onyx of
the open sea at night.

There are silent times
of gathering worn fabric
to the sternum;
of keeping warmth.

     There is a single, new moment
     that rises up and surrounds
     the sudden knowledge
     that there is still unalterable,
     unspeakable sadness left
     after all wrong gods
     have stepped from shadows
     to be felled by grace.

And you find yourself standing
on coastlines, unvoiced
beneath a turning sky,
and you are as empty
as the dark between the stars.

And in that moment —
in that same, ancient, wave-weathered
moment —
you want nothing more than to
turn away from
the ocean you have found
opening up at the end of every trace.

You want nothing more than to
turn inland,
find deep-valleyed
graveyards where uncertain, distant
ancestors lie
and say,
     “I have been where you have been”
     and,
     “I feel your bones
     beneath my feet.”