The Maiden

Blessings


Arriving on the wings of sunrise
In the cradle of a silver jet plane
She lands on the native soil of
Chaucer, Shelly, Keats and Byron,
Spencer, Marlow, Milton, Pope,
Johnson, Tennyson, Wordsworth,
The Bronte's . . .
The Browning's . . .
Transported by this touchstone of reviled technology
This mundane modern miracle
She touches down upon
The hallowed ground of
Shakespeare
"This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England"
She breathes the mystic air of Stonehenge
Hears the veiled whispers of Avalon
Her first act upon these classic, ancient shores
Is to find a small black box
Which sends her voice around the world
Where I wait in the dark of these young, western hills
To hear her simply say
"I am safe"

She has traced mankind's Great Exploration Quest
Backwards
And done it all in
Eleven hours

At just the same age
Her great-grandmother made the same journey
Exactly in reverse
After traveling from Denmark
She embarked from Liverpool
Instead of eleven hours in a cushioned seat
With a book in her hand and music in her ears
She spent months sailing across the wide, cold Atlantic
Sweating, weak and ill in the dark, cramped steerage hull of a slow and shuddering ship
The she walked across the searing prairies and freezing plains of a strange continent
Pushing a handcart
She pushed that handcart over the Rocky Mountains
Burying friends along the way
By the time her letter arrived in Denmark
To say that she had reached her destination
She had married and given birth to a baby
So tiny she had to sleep in a wooden shoe

Her mother never saw that child
She never saw her daughter's face again
Never again heard her laugh
Never heard her voice
Saying three blessed words:

"I am safe."

I lay on her bed by the open window
Thinking of blessings
Her pillow still smells of her soft, curly hair

In the ebbing darkness
I smell roses
Water, hay, pine and something shattering that must be stars
I hear the cows calling to their calves
A plaintive hollow song like the empty echo in my heart
I hear the ever present prayer of the wind in the trees
I hear the clicking crickets just ending their long summer song
And right on the edge of silence, I hear a tiny throb
An almost imperceptible pulsation, like the unborn heartbeat
That once beat under mine
High above the mountain
The six fifteen America West flight
Comes in from San Francisco

On the wings of sunrise


©Edwina Peterson Cross