Born into the beauty of Spring
Between a fog-covered morning and
Daffodils breezily performing
A ballet in minor keys
She was touched first by the sun
Tenderly
Warmly
Our greatest star floated down
Like a blanket,
Covering.
Her mother was gentle
Hands soft and graceful—
Rose petals against her fingers
Blushed in their inadequacy
To soothe pain
With placid refrains of
Touch
Sliding down from
Cheeks to chins
With whispers thin.
Her father worked the fields
Gathered to his chest
The yields he nurtured
From seeds into
Future nourishment
Carried
In straw-colored baskets
To a town where
Eyes lit with hellos and
Hands shook with goodbyes.
Buried deep inside
The beauty young
A grain of aberration was planted—
Roots grew long and
Slanted downward
Spreading wide
Like awns on Wheat
Piercing delicate organs
Changing the beat
Of her sunflower heart.
Melancholia filled the pasture
Of her mind
A harvest inward
Pulling
Watered by heredity
Drowned in mystery
Tears stagnant
Hidden
Breeding mosquitos
Draining from within.
Born into the beauty of Spring
She lived in the landscape of Winter
Bracing against snow-filled torrents
Of frozen joy—
A sculptor of ice into smiles
A painter of masks
Detailing profiles
Desperate to delight
Those she could not disappoint—
Ashamed to bare only flickering light.
Her mother named her Bliss
Her father called her Life
They held her hands
Through seasons passing
Interlocked their fingers
With her plans
Held her high for every eye
To marvel and admire
Proud of the child, the woman
They knew her to be.
Her outside
Belied
Silent cries—
A contrast of
Cheerful attainment to
Sorrowful containment
Wrenching from
The wish to please
To the reality of
Brokenness.
As Autumn sang
Its songs of change
She unzipped her disguise
Let her discrepancy fall
And her hopelessness rise—
A coffin soft
Burlap and heavy
She sunk into the shadow
Where finally she could hide
From sunshine and from lies.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2016
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Necessary Whispers 