To Meet You in the Ether
by Leah Baker
I.
Moon day.
I climb up high and I climb up quiet
to meet you in the ether
I have been here dry and dreaming,
rising before the sun in the medicinal morning
My heart is juniper, sweet ponderosa and piñon
shaking its steady roots, stretching its thirsty lips toward you.
I am your devotee.
I will come when you call, arrive when I say I will.
II.
You, that patient, lasting edge that glows still,
saffron still, after sunset
You, kneeling at my root to witness the wonder of unfurling,
you, abiding changeless in devotion
as I weep upon the tremendous joy and marvelous pain of
baring my rose self in the light of you
You, a cracking expanse of power, of purpose,
sit steady: an attendant to my birth.
III.
Lately I am so quiet that I see shapes around shapes,
breaches of color and light, iridescence rupturing
its lined markings of blue-green circuitry
on the blank wall. These are my natural rhythms now.
You make the slideshow of the speaking universe
that spreads across my skin
I write the script of many tomorrows
into the lightning bursts of your irises: luminous, divine.
IV.
One can only taste with a mouth of hunger,
with a tongue lapping its curling way
Sweetly into the core of a treasured space.
I will worship there. I will carve the ridges
of that lock with the patient devotion
of my tongue.
I will kneel and pour the holy water of my mouth
into that opening.
V.
Tonight I tried to worship you at the holy chapel, a monument man-made
and monumentally grand. It was closed, gate shut.
Truthfully, I worship you everywhere
In the vines that brush my cheek and the cactus spine
spiking my calf, the hard sway of my hips and the salt on my tongue
In the three small bats fly overhead. I am a woman, you may remember,
and there are things my body yearns for
I worship you even in the impossible task
of aligning my body's purpose with my heart's and my spirit's
Look, I am here. How many years I yearned to come
to this canyon in the desert, to train my soul in this way
and I am here, on a ledge of stone
in the purplepink dusk
I worship you in my longing for you.
I worship you even in my sorrow
Moon day.
I climb up high and I climb up quiet
to meet you in the ether
I have been here dry and dreaming,
rising before the sun in the medicinal morning
My heart is juniper, sweet ponderosa and piñon
shaking its steady roots, stretching its thirsty lips toward you.
I am your devotee.
I will come when you call, arrive when I say I will.
II.
You, that patient, lasting edge that glows still,
saffron still, after sunset
You, kneeling at my root to witness the wonder of unfurling,
you, abiding changeless in devotion
as I weep upon the tremendous joy and marvelous pain of
baring my rose self in the light of you
You, a cracking expanse of power, of purpose,
sit steady: an attendant to my birth.
III.
Lately I am so quiet that I see shapes around shapes,
breaches of color and light, iridescence rupturing
its lined markings of blue-green circuitry
on the blank wall. These are my natural rhythms now.
You make the slideshow of the speaking universe
that spreads across my skin
I write the script of many tomorrows
into the lightning bursts of your irises: luminous, divine.
IV.
One can only taste with a mouth of hunger,
with a tongue lapping its curling way
Sweetly into the core of a treasured space.
I will worship there. I will carve the ridges
of that lock with the patient devotion
of my tongue.
I will kneel and pour the holy water of my mouth
into that opening.
V.
Tonight I tried to worship you at the holy chapel, a monument man-made
and monumentally grand. It was closed, gate shut.
Truthfully, I worship you everywhere
In the vines that brush my cheek and the cactus spine
spiking my calf, the hard sway of my hips and the salt on my tongue
In the three small bats fly overhead. I am a woman, you may remember,
and there are things my body yearns for
I worship you even in the impossible task
of aligning my body's purpose with my heart's and my spirit's
Look, I am here. How many years I yearned to come
to this canyon in the desert, to train my soul in this way
and I am here, on a ledge of stone
in the purplepink dusk
I worship you in my longing for you.
I worship you even in my sorrow
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Leah Baker is an English teacher at a public high school. She says: I’m proud to say that many of my Creative Writing students have had their work accepted for publication so far this year. As for myself this year, I have had my pieces other than the ones I'm submitting featured most recently in The Bookends Review, Lit Tapes, The Mystic Blue Review and Twyckenham Notes.
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