The Hush

 

 

(For Mary Rose Blazick)

I heard Slavic tales of the hush

where midnight came and a barn cat
resting on the wheel of the beer wagon
leapt into more than cold darkness
and cobwebs.

She sprang into a  woman

of sprawling hair and slender hips,
a white gown  and  arms bundled
with bull rushes that would be used
to craft her broom.

I  found traces of the hush

where paw prints turned into heel marks;
and a hematite buckle from her  shoe
framed some catkins fallen off
their long stalk, and fine threads of  wool.

She was gone gathering the hours

with her wild dance and broom sweeping down
shadows and stars. Wishes and secrets
from ancestors she knew. From women
who spun straw into gold, placed brass
bed warmers between the sheets
and infants from the elfin world. Women
who read cards and brewed more
than a kettle of  soup or tea. Women like me who know
the feel of that hush in their bones
when blood turns to ink, and the idle hand
of  a writer takes wing.