Rafts in Water

Everything has a centre to which it falls

And I remember

In the ether when you had already landed here

With our parents,

 I began falling.

Somewhere in the second year of your life you called my name

In a dream perhaps, or while playing in the yard with miniature men

Dressed up in war

You called my name and I was brought toward

You called my name like calling out the thunder

Or spring.

Our parents hushed voices

The air through the window

The creeking front door

The light on the ceiling.

And then…

Red wagons, tin can shoes, piles of leaves, construction site, ice through windows,

Running away, swing sets, hockey sticks, battle beasts, grass like fur, fur, birds, runaway hamsters, long hills to walk up, bullies who I destroyed for you in my mind, penny candy, attic spaces, ladders, rafts in water, water snakes, chasing dogs and skunks and light

And light

These years have spun so quickly

And all I can say truly is that

I am grounded because you

remembered me

From that place where we had no names.

 

I am sometimes off in a space with no hands to hold me.

I am often tripping over choices, and others, and my own breaking

And

I am always brought back

To the centre to which I fall

This gravity that holds me safer

This one who will always know me, and tell me, and remember

This comfort and grace, to be your sister.