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[Return to Guest Poets Page] [Next Page]Carol Ann Lindsay
I Hear The Coyotes Cry AgainThe savage, passing the house in the dark knowing this is the night for garbage cans, has no fear but I shake from his stalking walk and wonder if rabbits are awake. Candice would probably lure him to her, the way she could nurse and love frogs or kangaroo rats. She didn't hate animals in the canyon who devoured pets. She said, "We took away their food. We stole their land. What would you do without a grocery store?" There was wisdom in her words and art. She drew perfect pictures of birds and wolves that hang silent on the wall. She would draw this vagabond coyote, but not before guarding the wild one in search of prey. I watch the head bob, thinking how worried I'd be if Candice were here now. I close the door and tears come for my girl who died too young. Like the animal cast from his home, I'm hunting for life when I hear the coyotes cry again. For My Girl Who Died Too Young Candice Andromeda Lindsay September 5, 1980-May 22, 1997 by carol ann lindsay I save my tears when they say your body mangled in a car wreck may not breathe tomorrow, because you are a survivor. Then, I let masked men take you into the polished cathedral, for expensive tatoos that run from your throat all the way down. You would savor the crooked design conceived in a season cursed with sleepless nights, sterile smells, and "code blue" bells. * I watch the bed waiting, (on the day of the Spring equinox, when our hills are green from winter rain) and expect you, my miracle child, to wake up and say, "surprise." Each second is eternity as time ticks minutes full of acid pain that is fertilized with reality when I learn what you knew about the brain, that it's the hard drive for the mind, which is the software for the soul, which is the user. * I can't see the sun through fog that devours me. I can't sense time because dreams feast on phantom flashes of life while your body sleeps. Everything you did is sealed like sweet and sticky sap to the marrow of my soul. Everything you said is caged in my mind as I try to make the past real when it isn't, try to make yesterday alive, though it's fading with your flesh. * I think about what I'll give you - the diamond necklace your father gave me, crystal glasses in the china closet, and my mother's silver star ring that you took from my dresser last year. But I feel you over me, laughing, and know it's ridiculous to think of these things when you aren't really dying, just changing spaces the way salmon swim and find the sea before returning upstream to spawn and start the cycle of life again. * My tears grow fierce like a desert storm the second your spirit is free. I am weak from the poisonous plague that steals a slice of my soul with creation's climax. * The way we were and the way it was with you, my blue-eyed blond, lives as a brief breath in eternity now that you are gone. * Today, I envy ten years ago, when life hungered for free space and future. If I could only stand in the rain and let it rinse away this swollen Spring, I would surrender to the miracles of incarnated days when there wasn't time. I would capture every second and I wouldn't think about tomorrow or dust and dirty dishes. I would choke life with love and learn each one of those dumb blond jokes you told me. * From your room I hear coyotes whine under a full moon and remember Felix, your cat, disappeared so that coyotes could celebrate lunch. I see night decorated with empty shadows looming over your marble Buddha and Nirvana poster. I wonder if your last words to me, "I love you, too," will fade with the dress I caress. I feel the hollow spot and close the door to a living tomb that silently sears ---my heart forever. Copyright © 1999. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Duplication of this poetry and/or art without permission of the author/artist is forbidden under copyright law. Please ask permission if you wish to use for non-commercial purposes
Tuesday, July 11, 2000 |