Opening

by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

I feel it before dawn—
the longing not only for light
but for the vast embrace
of the dark,
the way it links me
to the farthest reachings
of the universe,
the way it holds
each dull planet,
each luminous star,
holds me with no question,
no reservation,
holds all I love
and all I have yet 
to learn to love.
With each breath
I bring it into my body,
small sips of dark,
great gulps of dark.
Inside me it swirls
with my love of light,
and this is how the certainties
of the heart are erased—
when I love and ache
in two directions at once—
and what’s left
is so raw, so open,
so alive.

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Printed with kind permission of Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer