Heaven/Hell
I was not promised
Heaven when I ran from the bones I was born in
remembered to me now only in songs, colder than the sea
older than the haunted woods. And back, and back, and back
the lurch of the Ferryman’s boat, and the clouds rise
like they have years to wait. A summer here lasts a second and an age
a winter passes in dark hushed breaths until
summer rises again and takes its time. Me, held under
gasping my startled verses into
the meltwater, a robin mounts a branch
and sings for days. Chime! And we swing into the enduring haze of
all our childhood Wonderlands, waiting for us
there, there, if you can only run fast
enough, if you can only love hard
enough, if you can only remember where
you used to hide when the Sack-Man came stalking.
And then! And then!
When you are through with the trees, and the sky
and the way the Hare-Moon never sets
you can wait for mother; and she is never far, always
calling to you from over the fields –
are you quite sure it is her voice? It would not
be the first time it has been borrowed by something hungry –
and you are home, and mother says
your face has changed because you’ve been away so long.
Why did you leave? says the house, and you have
forgotten the shape of its walls in the dusk and so
it doesn’t look like a house anymore. And
since when did it talk like that, like your mother but she’s hurting
like your father but he’s all alone
like you but not you?
And I can’t help but think that Heaven, your bright Heaven
has been something else all along.
Daisy Harris
Daisy Harris Poetry 