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)