November 19: "Aunt Leaf," Celestial-Sea-Star, Decorating Buddy

Mary Oliver invents an aunt . . . 

Aunt Leaf

by:  Mary Oliver

Needing one, I invented her--

the great-great-aunt dark as hickory

called Shining-Leaf or Drifting-Cloud

or The-Beauty-of-the-Night.

Dear aunt, I'd call into the leaves,

and she'd rise up, like an old log in a pool,

and whisper in a language only the two of us knew

the word that meant follow,

and we'd travel

cheerful as birds

out of the dusty town and into the trees

where she would change us both into something quicker--

two foxes with black feet,

two snakes green as ribbons,

two shimmering fish--

and all day we'd travel.

At day's end she'd leave me back at my own door

with the rest of my family,

who were kind, but solid as wood

and rarely wandered.  While she,

old twist of feathers and birch bark,

would walk in circles wide as rain ad then

float back

scattering the rags of twilight

on fluttering moth wings;

or she'd slouch from the barn like a gray opossum;

or she'd hang in the milky moonlight

burning like a medallion,

this bone dream,

this friend I had to have,

this old woman made out of leaves.

What if we could all invent people we need like Oliver does?

I would invent a young woman with the heart as large as the heart of a blue whale, hair deep and bright as a polished chestnut.  I'd call her Star-of-Heaven or Golden-Field-of-Dreams or Celestial-Sea-Star.

I would speak to her in a language only she and I know, like Oliver and her great-great-aunt.  The language would be wind in pines or moonlight in water, each needle, each wave making a tiny sound:  love me, love me, love me.

She and I would fly with cardinals, burrow deep into the mud of lakes with mussels, lifted and grounded, waiting to see what evolution the heart would undergo--into hummingbird wing or elephant foot.  Brushing the air, splitting the ground with its beats.

Her blood in my veins, my blood in hers.  Helix speaking to helix.  And, under the milk stars, we would fill the night with a kind of hope--light and color, sweet as wood smoke from a midnight chimney.

She'd come with empty pockets, fill them with the stones of my love, and leave, trailing a tail long and beautiful as a peacock's, 

She would be my flesh, my blood, my hope, my light.

And flights of angels would sing hosannas to her, sweet child, flint of my Christmas tinder.

Saint Marty gives thanks for his decorating buddy.  His Celestial-Sea-Star.