I climbed to a lake in the sky Split in half by two worlds; Speaking two languages.
It was by the water's edge that I buried you.
As I descended I felt an emptiness; a lightness.
I looked up Seeing a single wolf on the precipice
Heading back down towards the world below. Burning.
Our pain asks us to sit with it For it is lonely too.
Dianthus cretaceus
A damp morning sang the song of the horse; short and high and secret and rare.
Climbing over the bow of color in the grey, yellow sky, Its song dipped and bent with the north wind singing chorus in the trees until it landed in the fields afar.
Good morning, it sang. I sing of the colors you cannot see.
Trifolium arvense
Ink on the page,
like blood in the vein.
The souls of trees are in the sky.
That is why they reach so high.
Senecio grandidentatus, Epilobium angustifolium
As summer ascended, The flowers I gave you grew wings
And flew away.
Campanula rapunculoides, Verbascum laxum
I hear the coyotes
scream in the night.
Calling out over the expanse. Painting the shapes of the landscape around them. Hello Where are you?
Coming together through sound and spirit.
Their sounds are so joyous. So joyous.
They raise my soul up to the dark skies; Give me hope.
It is as if they know When my soul resides below the earth; When it is trapped within my body; When it aches to fly out into the fields and breath in the damp, tenebrous air.
Then they call.
As I laid beside you All I really wanted to do
Was touch you.
Gentianopsis ciliata
In her loneliness She created in him Someone who was not there.
Seeing flowers Where there were only fallen leaves.
She wanted so badly to apologise to a spectre who never existed.
Gentiana septemfida
I can not sleep. I can not help sleeping.
I dream of prison towers and walking up invisible staircases
Then I wake with eyes dampened. I can feel the ridges along my brow.
It was so simple. She had simply one day been forgotten.
Woronowia speciosa
They tell me
I escape the world by running through it.
Geranium sanguineum, Astrantia maxima
Because You hung my bouquet By your door for too many years.
Because The petals and the leaves fell to the floor with every passing person and day.
Because The master's wort curled in, became brittle.
Because The geraniums, gasped for air transluscent.
Because As the sides of your home fell in and the winter air made you cold,
And you brought the flowers to me, ashen and falling around your fingers saying,
"I did not forget you. I only laid you down for a time."
Not realising that I too had become ashen and fallen.
You did not know you hurt me Because you could not feel it.
And you left So you did not see it.
My long loose hair Falling to a wood floor.
Leucanthemum vulgare
Then came the day
When she did not want
In her life
The person see used to
Love the most.
Tanacetum macrophyllum
The memory
of being thrown aside
Created in her
a need to outgrow
him
and his pain.
I wish to be seen. I wish to be unseen.
Potentilla ruprechtii, Melilotus officinalis, Securigera varia
He tried again and failed.
It was not the attempt that was a failure,
but something else entirely.
Maybe it is what we try to give each other.
The hands full of flowers. The best parts of ourselves. So that we might be taken in and make you smile As we are held with care.
Maybe it hurts.
Maybe it is beautiful, but wilts away.
Then we return to the fields of clover and honey and fireweed before the autumn sets And we try again.
Running back to our homes with another gift torn from the meadow Of our selves.
Clary Estes
Clary Estes is a documentary photographer and writer from Central Kentucky who works internationally.
