I Wish I'd Written This

Mother Sky

By Susie Clevenger

Mother Sky, send your nightlight stars

to candle our way out of darkness.

Let us hear the voices of our ancestors

who spoke the language of the trees.

We have walked across the forest

in our stone moccasins for so long

we can longer hear the roots cry.

In the noise of our tongues speaking

iron and glass we became deaf.

Mother Sky, we are listening,

the days of stealing years from limbs are ending.

Our hands will nurse the great oak while you

water seedlings from tears of joy instead of pain.

Susie Clevenger, who lives in Houston, Texas, blogs at Confessions of a Laundry Goddess, where I've been enjoying her writing for some time. I thought this beautiful piece was particularly outstanding.  

She posted it only last month, so I have waited a little while to share it further. I expect it will already be familiar to some of you, but perhaps the lapse of time allows you to appreciate it all over again. 

I find it very moving, all the more so in the simplicity and restraint of the language. Let us hope for an end to our collective deafness, and for the "joy instead of pain" she predicts!

Susie's Google profile says: 

I am an author, poet, and amateur photographer. I recently published my first poetry collection, Dirt Road Dreams.

I am a member of the Academy of American poets and a member of the online writing community, Imaginary Garden with Real Toads. My work has been featured online in The Creative Nexus, Poetry & Prose Magazine, The Brinks Gallery, and The Global Twitter Community Poetry Project.

You can find links to my written work, photography and social media on my author’s page.

Her Laundry Goddess blog has links to her photography, and to her other social media outlets. She also posts her poems at Butterfly Poet on facebook.

Susie is a member of the Poets United community and was featured as a Blog of the Week three years ago, as well as being quoted earlier this year in a Midweek Motif.

Poems and photos used in ‘I Wish I’d Written This’ remain the property of the copyright holders (usually their authors).