The deepest secret nobody knows

when the world was kaleidoscope under shining tears, she was always there in focus. when laughter cried down freckled cheeks, mouths wide and heads swung back for the joy of it, our arms were linked. when the night sky broke in a million raindrops, and we saw only mirror shards of each other's love, we stood still in the knowing. we can't be without each other. we've only ever known the other's presence, like sun and moon aligned (never eclipsing, we know that now).

we've shared seasons apart--a frozen rhode island i will never know, and georgia peaches that are mine alone. sons have been born without the other to kiss welcome hellos. but still we always breathe one.

we followed her out here to this vast skyland of texas. i missed my poplars and friends and that feel of home. but she became home to me, here. we shared our sons, five of them all stair-stepped and enough crazy to gray us infinitely. we've learned a new knowing as mothers-together. we thought sisters had it best of all, but our womb-sharing with each other only ever taught us to be the women who opened wombs to children of our own, and there is magic in the revelry.

and we leave again. go back "home," and i'm happy and broken in the tearing. love that city with its blues and elvis-stamp, its barbeque and smoky grace, the friends eagerly waiting to love on me (all expanded with my boy group in tow), the city of a thousand churches if i could find one to embrace me.

the world runs together like watercolor and finger paint, all smudge and swirl for tears that know no matter what we'll survive distance, but also know magnetic pull to be one, here, always. my boys need their bebe as much as they need their mama, and she knows it. we both do.

so much new to come: new job for rickey, new hours for me to learn to be wife and mama and teacher, new city/old city (moving always brings new, doesn't it?), new balance of friend-church-rest. and new without her.

(me on the left, her on the right)

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
~ e.e. cummings