But not quite yet. 
Instead, I'll post a poem I wrote for a friend of mine.


for Pam, who is deathly pregnant

I picture you stepping out of your fevered skin.
Slipping into the cool robe of a long afternoon,
the gentle hands of the wind, the quiet of water.
I would pray ease for you.
But you in your dark goddess days
told me with flashing eyes and words of blood
that you had been to the darkness
and deep inside were rubies so brilliant
that they could blind the accidental traveler.

This journey is deliberate.
You are the hero, the wise crone,
the beast to be kissed and the sleeping self to rescue.
You are the child long awaited
and the mother giving birth forever. 

This is the tale of a love
that won’t stay nailed down or rolled up,
that curls and unfurls. 
This is the story that you have been telling me all along. 
So I will dive into my own darkness, as you dive into yours,
and down there I will sing a song to you
that you have sung to me before.
The song says that

after this, comes joy.