further up, further in... a ghazal

by S. I. Brubaker

I have seen the longing that the wind has sown;
I will never learn to be alone. I yearn

To be what I will never be, ‘till Heaven awakes,
I am soul encaged in blood and bone. I yearn

To be more than a child, as all children do.
I will watch the reaping of the earth, when I am grown. I yearn

For doors to doors to doors. Further up and further in,
Where we will find you waiting. So we moan, “I yearn,”

When Autumn sweeps her sweet decaying skirts
And ushers us in and up but we can’t go. I yearn

For skies extending ladders down to earth,
For stars on stars on stars. They have always shone, but I yearn

To know their every name. I yearn for trees
And feet and hands to climb them, fields more whispering than I have known. I yearn

For a morning when I wake at the pale doors of dawn,
And they are open, and beyond them all is new, and I am home—and I will always yearn.

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A poet, lover of trees, and splasher-in-creeks, S. I. Brubaker has a deep love of story and word, mythos and logos. She heads the Kingfisher Quarterly, which she founded with a mission to publish excellent poetry by aspiring young writers that rings true and nurtures affections rightly. She lives in a little hollow in the farmland of Pennsylvania through which a creek flows and occasional small dust devils make life interesting.

Image Credit: Ezra Brubaker