A crow that's being dreamed
By a child who's being carried through the forest
Sleeping, wondering in her twilight half-awareness
Where her mother went
I know that you died
But in this child's crow dream you survive
Beneath layers of magical symbolic wild animals
Inhabiting the edges of our fogged-over consciousnesses
Grasping for something to hold
Something old
Like a name cut into a stone
Or a bird that will make eye contact
That's where you live now
Or at least that's where I hold you
And we're still here without you
Sleeping and the sun's coming up
In the ruins of our household, we wake up again
Coming back into this
Every day that comes, the echo of you living here gets quieter
Obscured by the loud wind of us now
Wailing and moaning for you
But also living, talking about school
Making food, just surviving and still containing love
Waking up again, the baby that you knew is now a kid
And when she looks at me with your eyes the shape of almonds
I am stirred inside and reemerge
I go downstairs and turn on CBC and make some coffee
And boil two eggs and make two pieces of bread into toast
And open the window and give the child some clothes
And get us sitting at the table
Where your chair still sits across from me, watching
I stand up to put on music
Our daughter sees and asks for mama's record
And she's staring at the speaker with this look of recognition
Putting it together that it's you singing
I'm sobbing and eating eggs again
You're a quiet echo on loud wind
But when I'm trying to, I see you everywhere
In plants and birds and in our daughter
In the sun going down and coming up and in whatever
And the myths that used to get told around the fire
Where a seal's head pokes up through from underwater
Crossing a threshold between two worlds, yours and mine
We were skeletally intertwined once
But now I notice ravens instead
I don't see you anywhere
If you still hang in the branches
Like burnt wood, I will go out beneath
With arms reached and run my fingers through the air
Where you breathed, touching your last breath
Reaching through to the world of the gone with my hand empty