Keening

There is a place for the low wolf howl,

a place for the long keening,

a place for the cry that launches itself

out of tears, after facades have fallen

It can go on as long as it has to —

no need to question the purpose

or the meaning

or if it (really now!) must be enough already

I may be howling for myself

or for the world

or for everything I put up with 

but shouldn’t have,

for all the stands I didn’t take

It is a part of me I didn’t know —

Ancient, loud, flinging its sound out

Sharp enough to echo through the trees.

It frees me, at least a little,

from domestication,

from constrictions on what I’m allowed to be

It can continue as long as it needs to.

Afterwards, the horse comes out of the woods,

the bright flashing fish appear from nowhere.

I may do lucid dreaming

but this — how my creator holds me —

This is more.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 16, 2015

photo by Susanne Weiss