Shiva for Margit

Child and mother

Cast one shadow

You said

Until the sun

Is born

In folds

Of space

Between them

And light crawls

Into new life

In separate

Seasons of flesh.

Flesh comes between

Earth and sun,

And shadow

Measures

The angle of defiance

Until the sticks

And stones of death

Shake words out,

Shadows driven

Beyond the reach

Of flesh

Into the archives of darkness.

In the underworld

History

Is the only light,

Memory linked to

Memory after memory,

A chain of candles

Carving flames

Into the texture

Of the wind,

A furtive fire

To keep the hands

Of darkness warm.

A child finds a face

And makes a face

Out of womb-water

And the orbit

Of sun, moon and stars

In a mother's eyes,

Before the earth

Has a leg to stand on.

A child walks

Out of himself

Through the walls

Of his mother

Like the breath of night

Shining

In the dews of morning.

Lonely is the night

Inside the dream

Of the long distance

Between birth

And a handful of dust,

And even the wind

With the dust

Of dreams

On its shoulders

Is lonely.

A child wanders

In dark water

Until it finds

A name

In the book of light

Written before the sun

And moon

Had names in the flesh

And blood

Of parents.

It is this nameless

Child

That puts words

In the mouth

Of a leaf

And words in the dreams

Of the future.

Margit,

You made a science

Of the comings

And goings of children,

The ebb and flow

Of nature

Finding itself

Losing itself

Within the reach

Beyond the reach

Of love.

If history

Is a lost child

Born again

In a womb of words

That never laid eyes

On his flesh,

Your words

Beyond the pale

Of death

Will after-birth the future.