She bore a great weight in the world.
She cited all the injustices of her life
in a book,
all the slights and pain.
There was no chapter for happiness,
no voices that promised love,
no mysteries to be solved
covered with the blue cape of desire.
Her eyes were beautiful,
but could not see.
The flowers had gone into the ocean
and never returned,
and I asked her how the book was coming.
Did it enlighten her?
Did it relieve her day of its shadows?
Did it justify something?
Did spring grow beautiful
in the frost of its innocence?
Did summer smooth her hair
with its breezes?
Did she tell of fall’s festivals and dances?
And did winter cover her face
with its veil of white,
a new bride?
Did these get remembered in her book?
Did she keep her childhood
like a rose pressed in its pages?
And then I saw the emptiness of her eyes.
They cast no shadow.
They saw nothing that begged to be seen,
and I asked gently,
why not take a slight, an insult, a grievance,
and go to the shore,
and cast them one by one into the sea,
never to be remembered,
retrieved,
washed up on the sand,
until the book became light as a feather,
a bird ready to fly.
And for an instant a star
came into her eyes,
but its sky was too vast
too huge,
and it disappeared
in the ink of her busy pen.