Here is the thing with seals, you can wait for them forever,
or no time at all. Same for jellyfish nation, salvation,
that one particular text or the family of whales
you’ve been waiting to show your daughter.
Anything that offers a glimpse,
in the time space of a meteor,
what it is to be present,
certain, alive.
Whatever word you choose
to describe your sacred is the right one.
It is said god lives in the details,
who cares what you call her.
So many parts of what matters
left out of our curriculum.
Still, when things are too big,
the only way to navigate is to return
to god’s house, the details there,
so here we are, speaking of seals
or whatever it is you find holy,
what frees you to keep trying.
These days a problem of composition, the perfect blue sky,
ripening plums, less email than usual.
The ospreys that circle my house all day,
what they sound like, are crying for.
There is too all summer, night air hollowed
lacking skin, music,
how it stings my throat.
Smoke from ranges away,
the prisoner firefighters,
the way black bodies are bleeding.
How you cannot imagine one more detail of one more story,
And then it happens again, she was asleep in her bed,
it was his son’s birthday, he tried to save who he could
with a skateboard.
It breaks you yet know you are saved
by the one detail you can take no credit for,
broken by knowing -not by living- it.
And if you are like me,
you want to save everything,
and sometimes
do nothing.
Go back to what has to happen, the child fed, the garden turned over.
Walk the dog though your knee may be swollen, heart heavy.
She needs to go, god of course found in the shit of it too,
which was the first thing I thought of when asked for this poem,
how to align the mess of this with stars,
what we are all made of.
—
Amanda Kelly is a poet, essayist, activist and mother of five beautiful (and grown) children living on Vashon Island in the Salish Sea. She has been published in Soundings East, Arnazella, Cranky and was twice awarded the Marcia Doehner Award for Poetry at the Marblehead Festival of Arts. Her poem “Morning Regret” was the South Seattle Festival of Words and Art winner in 2008. Recent work can be found in Pivot & Pause: A Poetry Anthology of Resilience, Remembrance and Compassion edited by Azure Antoinette, Open Space’s the Literary Project Volume 6 (2021) and Fishtrap’s Fall 2022 Circle of Seasons.
