Where's Maggie McLean? (on the death of a child)
J.T. Ledbetter
Gone, early, before the history she carried
unfolded, blossomed like peonies twinning
in their strings, showing spring the way in.
Deep in her drowsy secrets,
sequestered in a lovely space
she heard the world's whispers,
saw the great secret, and opened her arms to embrace it
before anyone could tell her the old sayings:
"Is the store locked?
Are the cows in . . . ?"
things not written, shadows only—words remembered as
signs of how it was—
but she heard it already— knew the
songs and stories through the passing
of the seed and the mixing of light and
shadow of a thousand days, and
tucked up her mother-skirts and
jumped into eternity, laughing.
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