Green Holly Man New Year, 2011, Laurie Byro

 

Endeavor, Tim Timmerman
(monotype, gouache, & collage 10″ x 23 ½“)             

 

 

 

Green Holly Man New Year, 2011

When I wake I feel guilty; it’s been a year since
we met last, but something draws me to the forest
where you have summoned me in the past.

Since your wrists were cut, I sip you secretly
like wine. The barbed edges of your touch still hold me
captive as birds peck and flock to red winter

berries. Snowy wind rattles my windows and I know
you are chiding me to walk with you on this first day.
I gather greens and abandoned birds nests and form

my life into a wreath. Later, when I weave blue jay
feathers and attach acorns I remember how your eyes
change as you become what I want but can never have.

I fear this is the year you will leave me completely, the year
when I leave the mewling of you down by the shore,
and ice covers the lake. I’ll not watch for you again.

Later, when I undress in the mossy dark, I notice my legs
have scratches like train tracks. I know then, you are gone.
The ice on the lake is frozen enough to walk on.

Your hands will not touch my shoulders like a rough
shawl. When I walk the lake alone this winter, fish
and turtles rearrange themselves in the silence underneath.

 

__________ 

Laurie Byro