I spent the days leading
up to the New Year folded
in half
a paper elephant swinging
her longing
trunk, grasping at and
flipping over
stones along the shoreline.
A great mouth,
cut in the sand, swallowed
pond into ocean
and roared
a satisfied
roar to the south.
I passed through a garden
of mussels sighing amid the mud
and stopped
to listen
to them breathe
the salted,
December
air.
My sister, silent, bowed
to the midden pile
and scanned the water’s
edge with reverent eyes.
Somehow, I was warm,
nestled at
the bottom of a bowl of
steeped conifer. And
I wished
that I could
be like the pine—bearing
the weight of winter in
her arms and
allowing them to break
away, trusting
she would grow again as
she has for a hundred years.
And I wished
that I could
be like the moon—taking on
darkness
and light
with equal
grace.