Lotus

    by Maril Crabtree

Certain wounds

bloom in the consciousness

forever: white petals floating

in a dark sea,

nourished by decades

of dreams, memories,

darkness layered with darkness,

and still

at the bottom clearly seen –

bright coins of transgressions.

Into my dream he came,

young again.

He knelt at my feet, told me

he wanted to give me something –

a ribbon, a trinket, a jewel –

I knew he looked for a way

to make amends.

I wanted him to know I knew,

in that prescient way

dreams have of shaping us with truth.

I am older

than consciousness itself,

risen to my surface

full of days and nights –

full of thousands of moons

floating into my life since he first

came – full of darkening seeds

and inescapable wounds.

Taking his hand I invite him

to travel once more

my body's terrain, break open

the seeds of offered grace,

as holy a way to redeem us

as I know. Bowing

to this lifetime's wounded weight,

we have waited long enough

for sorrow's flowering embrace,

for the wafer of regret

to reconstitute itself as blessing.  

© 2003 Maril Crabtree

* Previously published in DMQ Review 2003

Maril Crabtree lives in the Heartland.  A Pushcart Prize nominee, she is poetry co-editor of Kansas City Voices. Her poetry has recently appeared in the Flint Hills Review, Coal City Review and Steam Ticket. She is also an energy healing practitioner and believes in the healing power of both allopathic and nontraditional medicine.