the not-so-empty

butterflies hummingbirds and spiders

helped raise my children....

today i thanked them:

risen from my empty bed,

gone out of my empty house,

into my empty garden—

  

i stopped

under summer-sunlit gold-streaming

leafy old beings, rife with patience

(the trees, not me!)

the otherworld beckoned:

a stained-glass-molten-golden swallowtail

ribboned into my vision....

stepping further under the trees—

a web-festoon drew

across my face....

(the spider,

golden too,

arced away to safety....)

a hummingbird, wings a-haloed,

paused over the open hillside

(not feeding, not chasing a mate, not hiding)....

i felt

the constancy

of their attention,

(and of all things winged and wafted)

and i thanked them for reminding me:

the otherworld nets around us,

throughout childhood....

or day or night,

or now....

•

i still see them

making secret tunnels under bushes....

(the children, not the spiders.)

(well, the children and the spiders.)

i hear their gleeful chirps

in the climbing-trees....

(the hummingbirds too!)

daring each other higher,

shouting as they leap from limb to grass....

(how the webs and the wings encircled

 my anxious moments....)

the pangs of their empty spots

(on couch and floor and very own beds)

sting me....

but—

the hummingbirds, butterflies, and spiders

still come around

like nothing has changed!

and maybe nothing has....

i live the age-old dance

of love and let go, and ‘a blessing on your journey!’

and walk from under the trees to meet the unknown

like mother after mother before me....

___________________

©2013

beth anne boardman