~after Geoffrey Chaucer, from Canterbury Tales “Weeping and wailing, care and other sorrow, I know them well enough by eve and morrow”
Late afternoon nap interrupted by weeping,
unable to shake off the dream – and
with it, the young child’s wailing
still assaulting my ears. No one to care
for the waif in the dream, of course, and
so I name her Anna and hold her in my heart. No other
thing can I do, having tasted the depth of her sorrow
so like my own, her tears drops of water from an ocean. I
think perhaps she’s always been a part of me. I know
that look of fear shadowing her eyes; I see them
clearly because they are my own. Within them is mirrored a deep well
of sadness and longing, for a something she’s never known enough
of in her short life. A something she could live by,
if only it existed. If only it were hers. On this fair springtime eve,
I’m fully awake now, still aware of my mirror-self, and
I wait to see if she will follow me into the morrow.
4/22/24
Karen McCaskey 