Page 92 - Dark Matter Women Witnessing

Kim Chernin

A Stuttering Kind of Worship

I

When I was a child

morning and night I crawled out

on the fire escape

I heard a murmuring, a gathering, a delivering, every each with its particular message.

Great rushing rivers boisterous silence. Something waiting,

the whole tribe, our nearest kin, playing hide and seek with us

so young, so young in the birth of a sight that gives birth to itself

and we know ourselves then irrevocably

stitched to the taut weave of what is.

II

Look: a whole new batch has been delivered.

Some of them, before they discover wings

plunge to earth as guardians

of the great whispering rivers;

another crop of forgotten kin

wanders around looking for purpose;

the next pack gets blown over the edge

in the first strong wind

to teach those of us,

who might notice,

how to grow feathers;

a fourth bunch likes to sing

so that’s what they do

all day they sit around inventing

close harmonies meant for us;

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