No Words

My friend, Darcy Smith, wrote a poem, “No Words.”  I am posting it today, in honor of Maya’s Yahrzeit,  Thank you Darcy, and Sadie Press for giving me permission to do so.

 

No Words

Daring blue skies glare down the oak

covered path that snakes to her house.

 

I step over leaves the size of hands,

cross hatched, damp from rain pounding.

 

It’s not autumn yet, but they fell

their secrets piled there, impossible

 

to ask what it feels like

to be flung to the ground.

 

I sit Shiva with a mother, an hour

a lifetime, a daughter gone.

 

Mirrors covered, her girl’s picture propped

on a cold woodstove, lone candle stutters.

 

Clusters of women sit, crying in her living room

one whispers, “I don’t know how to help her.”

 

Someone stands, sings a quivering acapella

‘There ought to be a lullaby for grown-ups’.

 

On the 15 year old’s shrine, a hard wood puzzle,

each pastel letter of her name rests in its place.

 

The young oaks silent, her daughter slipped

into the soft light of that sudden morning.

 

She picked a tree. And leapt.

Her secrets piled there, impossible

 

to ask what it feels like

to be flung to the ground.

Darcy’s poem, No Words, credit Sadie Girl Press August 2016, new anthology, Incandescent Mind Issue One. 

No Words was inspired by the life and legacy of Maya Gold. To learn more about uplifting and empowering teens and adults please consider visiting:  http://www.mayagoldfoundation.org/

To purchase a copy of  Incandescent Mind Issue One go to the book store at Sadie Press

“Yarzeit”, is Yiddish for “a year’s time”.  It is the anniversary of a death.  The Jewish calendar is both lunar and solar based (different than the Gregorian calendar which is a solar calendar).  This explains why the anniversary date in the Jewish year is different each year, and different than October 2.