The Wellspring of Salt

The Wellspring of Salt

The wellspring of salt has run to dust;

The reservoirs of grief are done.

I used to believe that tears were proof

Of weakness, a battle lost and won

By the soft heart. Now, I know the lie:

I emptied them all, and still survive.

I have wept the oceans of a lifetime dry,

And there is nothing left to shrive.

A hollow chamber where the soul should ache,

Just echoes of the weight I carried:

The sudden, brutal severance of a husband gone,

The earth that claimed the mother I have worried

For since, in silence. The exquisite pain

Of longing back for love that never came.

A scorched internal landscape, washed with rain

That never fell, and only bears the name of God

They took the fiber of what was pure,

And twisted the thread until it snapped and frayed,

Demanding that my gentle spirit cure

Its wounds by wearing the garments of their rage.

They forged the fire, but they do not own the flame.

I will not wear the shadow they designed.

The GOD in me runs toward the light now, screaming

A vow against the darkness they defined.

I lift my gaze above the ruined years,

I reject the bitter architecture of your hate.

I stand here, stripped of every single tear,

At the final, desolate, unburdened gate.

How does one rise when the ballast is shed,

But the wings are unfamiliar and untried?

My lament is finished, my final word said.

Oh, GOD, when the tears are utterly dried,

How can I fly?