Angels Wrestled in the Night
Every angel wrestled marks me.
and every morning, remade,
I grieve again.
If I had mourned before,
when loss first came upon me,
so many years ago;
would the womb be so dark
where now she draws me in?
But what did that little girl know
of the stages of loss?
Mother to the woman,
standing in the mirror,
leading somewhere
she has not been before.
Grief marks me.
Takes my hand
and, like a ghost,
of summers that have never been,
instructs me in the mysteries of my life.
This lover, my grief,
has become the quintessential deconstructionist
marking the meaning of passages
whose existence I have chosen to ignore.
If I do not need, there is no loss to mourn,
no emptiness to fill
no fear to conquer.
If I do not need, there is no betrayal,
no newly bleeding wounds,
no scar tissues broken open.
And somewhere, in the labyrinth of my life
are marked hallways that I must walk again.
Silent stone corridors,
where gather, as before, the gifts of angels
sweet and bitter.
Within my body, sacred,
I must allow these gifts to grow.
Bring to life within, the deepest harbour:
a haven for the soul.
And so, having drunk from the chalice of choice,
the one to whom I give birth is myself.
True, for the first time, to light and to shadow.
Fiona Mackintosh (© 2002, February 22, 2018)