by Frances Hatfield
From across the far meadow
whoo, who-whoo
murmurs through the glass of sleep
and the moonlight of this world
spills through the blind,
pooling all around me
on the cloud-white bed.
Who sleeps
through all my daylight hours
dreaming I am awake?
Who wakes now, trembling
at my heart’s open gate?
In my dream, a woman pointed
to the calf who had been chosen.
I see her standing
in her circle of dust,
yoked to her stake
of birth and circumstance.
It’s too hard, I told her,
the sudden knife in my hand
gleaming strange
Here, she said,
showing me where to plunge the blade.
Then I am shown
what would unfurl
(If only I could bear
the dying)—
Its dark bearing radiance
its silence,
music
(from Parabola Magazine)
