The Sand Hill Review               http://www.sandhillreview.org 2011

Indigo

A long time ago, living, suffering, she hid in her coffin

at the crematorium, or maybe it's still happening.

Passing timberline, she may have died or only feels like it,

and the coffin has been burned a different word or painted red.

She counts her world and buttons, including texture, sound, color,

smell, and other differences, wooden, cloth-covered, metal, plastic,

bone, or shell, also shape, round, square, oblong, pentacle,

hexagon, and how many holes each button has, whether

the holes go through the sockets or a ring is attached to the back.

She prefers at these times of living or death

to occupy herself with tangible things, chisel

transformations, and think about how, before us,

even simple objects open opposing truths, whether

she wishes a truth to be told, read, or forever held secret,

like cloth over day, for she has been called mother, grandmother,

ancestor, sorceress. She can hear life in their distant voices now,

speaking through microphones and screens. I hear you, I hear you,

not, not, not, her words stay like happened lightning in the walls,

for they are the real walls of her sons' houses,

and the first color of her magic is something like

indigo, the leaves must be fermented to release the dye.

The older son stands before us on his knees,

in prayer. What, me first? Am I tall enough

to know this story? Speak O speak, Homo parabolus.

He holds the microphone, a deep shade of blue in his words,

calls up ocean and sky. Clouds, frothy waves

in white patches between the blue. Here and there,

an early morning mountain. Boulder, Jellyfish, Child, Pelican.

In Japanese, he tells us, the word ai means both indigo and love.

From her coffin, she hears the distant eulogy.

Catherine Freeling