by Kwami Nyamidie
- You Will Remain Visible
New Moon.
You call us to prayer,
Reminding us it’s time to make wishes:
Mother’s bygone days ritual
For the nascent lunar month.
Wish Making at New Moon
Full moon.
The sacred spell-casting time
A reminder
Of the bond across time and space.
Full moon: A Time to Cast Spells
Invisible loved ones surround us now.
Grandma Chickadee comes twittering.
Double arced rainbows flutter
Across snow-capped mountains.
Owls hoot the presence
Of medicine men and women
Waiting behind the liminal wall
Of life
Of death.
They blow us their kisses.
From new moon to new moon,
You will melt my heart.
As I gaze up at the full moon’s dreamy disk,
You will stand by
As my co-celebrant of sacred spells
Visible to me
From yonder.
April 2020
2. Were You On A Mission?
From teaching primary school children with Norma
To tutoring teenagers learn to drive,
Mentoring youngsters on money matters
Did you come to show us how to live?
Mother figure to girls scout members
Guardian of children with less present parents;
Biological mother of two daughters.
Did you come down to show us how to love?
You cared more about others’ pain
Than the prospect of your own death
Worrying more about
The oncologist’s torment
As he delivered devastating news
Than the prospect of a terminal illness
Robbing you of life.
About your demise you spoke
As though you were just getting ready
To return to a cherished home.
Stepping out of your human coccoon
Seems to pose no problems for you.
Did you come to us mortals of this world
To teach us how to die?
- Terminal One
A run-away pet python let loose
slithers under the kitchen sink.
An assassin with white gloves
lurks behind the shower curtain.
A lion in the car’s backseat
Readies to attack.
They dog me everywhere like
Invisible shadows of doom.
The soles of the feet feel the heat.
A volcano readies to erupt.
A missile on a drone hovering above
locks in steelthily its crosshairs
on the crown of the head.
The mind struggles to forget what it has known
The blood pressure machine
Registers 88 over 140
Betraying the body’s fear of its end.
Terminal.
- Terminal Two
Do not be afraid to crush
a raven on the highway–
Its wings can ferry it far away.
Between the disaster about to happen
And the catastrophe,
Much happens.
With medicineman mojo
I wake up in a dream
My magical vision
Sees under the kitchen sink
A purring cat standing in
For the deadly python.
Through the shower curtain’s slit
I receive a soft towel my beloved hands me.
There’s no assassin with white gloves.
Leo barks in the backseat
Recognizing the familiar landscape
And the sweet smell of home.
There’s no lion waiting to attack.
Divinity wraps Herself around me
Like an invisible light
There are no ominous shadows to swallow me.
Mother Earth cuddles me in a warm embrace.
Above me fly the diamond shaped kites
Of the vacationers on a summery beach.
Kites, not drones, hover my head.
Between the disaster about to happen
And the materialization of tragedy
Stretch nanoseconds
Wide enough for the raven to fly away
To experience the magic escape
In a lucid dream.
There is no death.
June 4, 2020.
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