red clay is talking: poems
by Naomi Ruth Lowinsky
before
life after life I stand by the road and look for a home Mirabai she had been raised to sing other people's songs but in the third morning of the new time with the wisteria blooming outside her kitchen window and the shadow of the earth about to fall upon the moon she looked at the sky the comet had inhabited saw four geese fly east heard the telephone ringing the man in her house running up circular stairs calling her name and suddenly remembered the lips of the one who had sworn her to silence in dark waters whispering— wait for me— one morning when the children are gone I'll call— put on your brown sandals wrap yourself up in your tree of life shawl come walk with me to devil mountain singing the song we were singing before you were born—