When The Black Earth Fails

I was beside myself

So I called Missa Him outside for a bath

She was trusting in the cold long light

And the shafts came low across the yard like heralds with shinning shields

Afterward, I sat beneath a tree and cried

I cried as Missa Him looked into my face

But I was not crying for you

I was crying for myself

That time I came out of the stones and river, like a beaver from the dam upstream

And I lay beside you, there on the bank, and we listened to the river’s glittering song

I remembered all of that

And I was crying because I had failed

I had failed you like the sun

Like the moon and the sea

Like the black earth beneath your feet

All of us failing to overcome your despair

All of us failing to save that part of you where love resides

And I wept near the tree, shed tears for myself, waiting for the night to enter my heart once again

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