Spring 2010

Cycles

por Carolynne Ayoub

 

When she was little, she watched clouds pull the night moon,
over the red tiled roof, and wave their yellow-grey light.
Shadows lengthened, breezes stirred, causing leaves to cycle.
Gentle waves of cool droplets fell; the rain bled
into her hair, softening skin, limbs, and girl.
She tossed aside her childish ways, her first death.

The house was weeping. Grandpapa slept, shrouded in death.
Hushed figures ate finger food under the watchful moon.
Too old to play, too young to understand, Papa’s dancing girl
tiptoed away. Now hidden, her arms stretched feather light,
She remembered his heartening words and her heart bled.
He once said, “Everything has its time, its cycle.”

When she turned twelve, Papa explained about her cycle.
‘Womanly changes! Creation tangos with death.
Your mother, and her mother before her, all have bled.
Secrets are hidden in swirling tides. According to Moon,
you are bathing yourself with darkness and light,
Blossoming woman, no longer, little girl.”

Dreaming the sky was turning black, she was a lost little girl.
Rusty brown seas churned, dragging her under the cycle.
Wintry skies were stern ‘til morning inched in, salmon pink light,
Her papa had returned home, accepting his death.
“Woman-child, welcome change! Sing to the Moon –”
He had said. It was then she noticed she had bled.

She bled bright, bright red, red. She bled and bled.
She expelled old ways, old tissue. This woman-girl
whispered to animals and the lustrous moon,
followed the seasons, months, and each cycle.
She embraced her life and her grandfather’s death.
Greeted each day, renewed in clear light.

Unexpectedly, a boy came to her, a glistening light.
Their flesh melded and melted. They heated and bled.
Sweet life twisted to sorrow, a black hole of death.
Love promised her that baby, a dear little girl.
Those damn pains had struck her, tearing her cycle.
Her body, iced barren under a distant moon.

Crumbled and crushed, abandoned by light and the moon,
the girl rambled and mumbled about cycles and death -
until her words grew cold and her life-spirit had bled.