I’m falling slowly out of my life,
scribbling notes and songs as I pass
through symphonies of thought, dazzled
by the whiteness of newborn calves
dropping in the grass, or my son at three, with
his seven pink shirts in the bottom drawer.
Sometimes I reach out and capture old addresses
like scarves streaming by, though on inspection I see
they have changed from their former state.
We arrive on shells with the stink of disinfectant
and distant waves, each finger ringed with silver,
each heartbeat a white tide, every minute our last.
What angels are ready to trail us, to keep our fastenings
relaxed? We spend our lives rearranging all the books
and blooms, making careful signals which will likely
never be decoded. Whatever order we achieve
gets quickly overgrown, pitted with rust, affixed
by moss to stone. I never double-knot bows anymore,
stitching myself instead to starlight, which
has been making its way toward me for many years.
I hope it recalls the way back home.
By Lisa Bledsoe
Watched by crows and friend to salamanders, Lisa Creech Bledsoe is a writer living in the NC mountains. She has two books, “Appalachian Ground” (2019) and “Wolf Laundry” (2020), and new poems in American Writers Review, Star*Line, Lammergeier, and River Heron Review, among others. She blogs at AppalachianGround.com