Perforated
this shell
waiting for the full break
slowly
slowly
it comes
at last the light
pours in and I bask
as if burdened shoulders
have never felt sunlight and I cry now
I cry
for the me who went before
for the me who tried to carry the world
for the me who finally broke
under the imagined weight of it all.
Of course it was never mine to carry and
of course I never really could anyway…
But this wildness
this wildness within
that I thought I’d lost long ago,
instead, quietly slumbered through its long dark night and
now awakens; a scruffy bear emerging from hibernation
blinking eyes against the morning light
shaking off the stillness
remembering
remembering
her tenacious spirit
as she stretches languorously
in the warm sunlight
before launching herself
in glorious spender
towards her first hunt of a new season.
2/5/24
Karen McCaskey 