Aged women are deepening inside
that visible darkness, shining like black
water in a forest pool, silver shaded
beneath branches tangling above, falling
breaking the shadowed mirror surface.
The crone, our mother, she who on earth
is a mountain, a tree, a cave with eyes of fire
a fierce mare bending her neck to drink –
we feel her lips sliding along our softening
skin like a kiss as we pass through the moon.
Judith Arcana writes poems, stories, essays, and books, including the poetry collections What if your mother, 4th Period English, The Parachute Jump Effect, and The Water Portfolio, a set of three broadsides. Her forthcoming chapbook Here From Somewhere Else received the Turtle Island Quarterly Editors’ Choice Award in 2015. Visit juditharcana.com.