Alyssa Sineni 

Everything Will Be Okay

 

It wasn’t all darkness in those days.
Heavy winds sometimes
moved through the trees,
leaving the worn edges smooth.

We thought it woven
from unbreakable thread,
connecting each one to the other,
like a great blanket buffering the cold,
but it was looser and more fragile than we knew.

Brilliance and grit intertwined
to polish even the toughest of us.
And we learned how tragedy
could have its own compassion.
The way shadow and light keep rhythm together.

Hope and happiness are not naïve.
It takes courage to go on.
So we persisted each day
mending the cloth.

Our hands moving in silent meter,
dissolving into the fabric,
those tenuous threads,
keeping it all together.

 

 

 

Lake Water

 

Sometimes, when we are at the lake, I see you.
It’s the light.  The way it reflects off the water.

Not just your face, but your eyes,
those tired landscapes of luminous dark.
When I see that storm in the distance,

I want to take your hand and hold it.
I want to change that for you,
but I can only show you

the tall grass by the water’s edge,
how it sways in the wind,
how the birds build their nests among the rocks.

How can I say this?
See how the seagulls dive and float,
like gravity is nothing to them,
like they have escaped it all.

 

 

 

The Dream

 

The mother deer
walks to the edge of a field
and sniffs the air.

She is looking for her fawn,
who today leapt
beyond the shelter of the tall grass.

Heat, from the summer day
comes off the asphalt in waves.
Like aftershocks from an explosion,
the surreal shapes and air
bending to flame.

She finds the fawn lying on the road.
The doe’s head begins
bobbing up and down
frantic,
as she tries to catch
that familiar scent
of tender joy.

Now, my own mother is there
standing at the road with them.
She is dreaming again.
In her dream,
she is taking them both into her arms.

She has learned what it is
to hold on and let go.
She holds them loose like water,
like a cascade of flowers.

Caressing their long necks,
she looks into the soft
brown eyes of their soul
and whispers
the only word she knows.

 

 

 

Heron

 

It was a summer morning
dew soaked and golden.
I made my way through
the wet grass to the pond
as if my life depended on it.

A silent grace,
a blue heron
at the edge of the water,
her wings rising and falling.

From there
each moment moved like
a quiet rhythm,
a deep hum,
effortless and unfolding
offering a second chance.

 

 

 

Alyssa Sineni, poet and metalsmith, works as The Programming and Community Outreach Director on behalf of the non-profit organization Art and Inspiration International, which features local and international artists and writers.  In addition, she currently writes for two blogs: Map to the Imagination and Art and Inspiration International.  Ms. Sineni resides in Western Pennsylvania. She can be reached at maptotheimagination@gmail.com