My father once said that life ends with each season –
air accumulates mass,
breath flows thick and stagnant;
conversations dangle from tree branches and sun-worn leaves.
Life ends when the light runs against the sky
and clouds crater into shades of bruise-red. Dark dark night clings
to the earth like a girl prophet grasps her mother’s hand
at the end of childhood.
Something about the blue streaks of moon on carpet,
the bed too small for sleep,
the wild ache of an eye emptied of its sight.
Something about a paradise rampaged by a storm.
But most of all, it is the feeling of mourning for myself –
of getting to know a newborn me;
the me shaken from a family and a life,
from all things creased and warm.
The bittersweet return to a new space, a foreign place,
having outgrown home.
by Sarah Street
