The Floodgates

mountain above, sky below --> fire above, fire below

Pointe-Claire sunrise for Vanessa — photo by the poet

     for Vanessa on her birthday

The potential of your life
has been building up like a river
waiting for the opening
of the floodgates in spring
and the return of birds at play
arriving on your birthday.

The sunrise clings to the earth
for a moment while the earth recalls
the day you were born and breathed
the breath of light and fire
filling up the calendar page
with the river’s unleashed rage.

The way you wandered the globe
in your younger days has given way 
to the pursuit of the hearth
and the discovery
of the flame at the heart of dawn
stretching light across the lawn.

The way you hold onto faith
in the motions of your dreams deferred
keeps your soul intact in time
and bends the rising light
through the cracks in the everything
where you still hear the birds sing.

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