Pick Up Your Pen Contest
Northern Arizona Book Festival
MKC
My Mary
By MKC
You met me as a scrawny cypress,
uprooted from Pacific coastline,
stranded in volcanic soil, starved
for a breath of ocean spray,
a touch of tidepool life,
a whisper of waves.
Like a saint, you sought to restore
my faith in nature’s cure.
Saltwater tears were cupped
in your freshwater hands. You readied remedies
and layed a banquet before me.
You saw my lackluster eyes
searching for morsels of rain
and fed me a soup of stars
swimming through liquid ebony.
I drank their glow
and learned their stories
to lull my heart to sleep.
I searched your shores for shells,
but found shards of memory. You watched, and planted a garden,
brushed the grass with Castillejas,
red-orange flares reaching for a cerulean
ceiling. Lavender lupins swayed with foxtails
in the late summer heat. I gathered
them in sketchbook scratches.
I missed the sea’s calls,
howling gusts and collisions
with cliff sides.
You listened
and drew elk at dusk to your edge.
Their symphonic bugles carved
an orchestra pit inside my hollowed
heart. They sang of deeper longing
that swallowed mine whole.
When sorrow reigned my thoughts,
your sunflowers bursted
as rivals to their namesake,
a gold Icarus would soar for. They stood
for hope tangible, joy hardcome. To bask in their light
was to smile from within.
By raising their heads,
I learned to lift my own.
Once, I looked up in time
to see the sunset you sent
for the peaks, dancing rose
and powder blue ribbons across
their tops. The show reflected
on your surface, coloring you
in shades and shadows.
As great blue herrings ghosted
over cresting waves I wondered
at your water lapping up rocky shoreline,
twisting in pirouettes further out.
I reached for your cold grasp
and recalled a twin bite.
I realized you were born
from saltwater tears like mine
carried far from oceanic origins. You forgot not the coast
and created a cornucopia
from evocation, for yourself and all
who wander to you, to make a home
for lost ones like me.
You found me as a scrawny cypress,
rooted by lakeside glory,
joined to earth thick as mud, satisfied
by a breath of monsoon air,
the touch of wild bouquets,
a whisper from my Mary.
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