At Waitomo, New Zealand
If there is no heaven
I’ll make due
rest my head in the cave of
constellations. Look up at
The Milky Way pressed
against stony pomegranate flesh.
I’ll suspend my silken chandeliers
blinking starlight in the dark—
catch a memory flitting
among those synaptic threads
evanescent strands of neurons and hydrogen.
I still remember the first time
a piece of my heart beat
outside my body, and your curved chest
smoother than clam shells,
clung to the gentle tide of my motherly
gravity.
Now that I am quiet I can hear
the ghost of your giggles dripping
from the cauliflower ceiling, down
limestone organ pipes, striking a tone
in sacred pools where willing angels listen.
I see the Christmas lights twinkling
in your moon eyes and feel
your footsteps fluttering through the nave
of the forest. The most sacred of all
prayers.
They say that immortality
belongs to God’s Beloved
but these pearl stalagmites pushed
through the ocean long before Tuatara
reptiles and Moa birds roamed this great island1
and still
they have not existed
as long as I have
loved you.
___________
1The New Zealand Tuatara are the last surviving reptiles that lived during the age of dinosaurs, and the Moa bird is an extinct group of flightless bird that lived in New Zealand about 12,000 years ago
Courtney Edwards is an English teacher, writer, and photographer from Portland, OR. She has a BS in English Education, BA in Art History, and MA in English. Her work has been published in Pile Press, The New Zealand Poetry Society, Penmen Review, and Oregon Public Broadcasting. Courtney enjoys traveling, exploring the PNW with her husband and three children, playing the piano, and helping to bring sea otters back to Oregon through the Elakha Alliance. You can connect with her on Instagram at @pnw.courtney.