CONJURING (or I LOOKED FOR THE WORDS TO TELL YOU)

I looked for the words to tell you. I want you to come to me, here, before spring claims me for her own, before the wind reaches for my hair to pull at me until I follow him. I was made for vastness, for open spaces, for the overturned bowl of the sky I long to lift into. I wanted to be held, but not in the way that rooms or names or the past hold you in, but held the way a riverbank offers direction, the way longing brings you back, the way the moon floods her light that calls you to the courtyard in the otherwise full-on darkness that settles but does not hold claim. I wanted to find the configuration of words that would let me tell you that I want you to come to me, and hold me here, with you, beside you, like a spark of flame in the unknown universe that I would recognize and return to, again and again. Not because you would follow me, but because I could not live without your light. There were no words I trusted to say this to you, so I opened the door to the wind and said only your name, aloud, like a conjuring, so that the wind might find you and bring you to me.

© 2019 Dora E. McQuaid

All peace to each one of you today. Dora