For Kelly J and Beth

Here is a poem I wrote last night in the margin of Women Who Run With the Wolves:

I meet her: La Llorona, she says
I am ruined.

There is shadow
of death mask
of blood &
dirt
on her face.

I tell her
Come close,
close to me.
I listen to what she tells me.

In this way
she knows:
she has been saved.

*    *    *
It is hard to keep doing what we do, I think to myself.  There are roots to roast, clothes to put away, an attic to be cleaned out or at least climbed in to--to make room for storage--cushions to be brought in off the porch and at least four calls to return since yesterday.  There is being nice to one another, and noticing the weather.  This is without school, without the reality of a lover that I yearn to cradle--of course I never let reality stop me--without children or a husband, without even a regular job.  This is without even contemplating time to write.  Still it goes, our funny programmed ways of continuing: falling from bed to floor in expectation of repetitive shelter and food.  Once we get to the other side of ourselves, have confronted all it is we have to own the love and the fear we then have the choice, and it looks like La Loba, La Mariposa, Skeleton Woman, La Inocente, She With Seal Skin...All the stories our mothers or their mothers ever told, great ancestress, great lovers of children, of men, of each other, great tender warriors and wipers of tears.  Kel, what we talked about yesterday on the phone, Beth what we talked about days before.  I say Clarrisa Pinkola said it best and she said it in her book last night to me, before bed. 

...it is standing still long enough to let the spirit find you.  It is said that all that you are seeking is also seeking you, that if you lay still, sit still, it will find you.  It has been waiting for you a long time.  Once it is here, dont move away.  Rest.  See what happens next.

Ahhh, beautiful.  Amen Amen.