Joanna Wiebe

You’re always with me, night and day,

even when we’re in different houses

doing different things,

even when we think we’ve fallen apart,

shattered by our ignorance and poverty of spirit,

broken by each other and crying for

some other love than this difficult mating.

Fueled by light and power from

mysterious sources, driven by a need to

create something new:  so new

we have only a faint image of what it is.

But that image shimmers before us and

behind us, pulling, pushing, adjusting nature

and events until we meet again, eye-to-eye.

My heart is new again,

tender, open strong.

My mind examines the attachment.

My soul prays for a clear view of

that bright thing that glistens all around us,

melting the frosty feelings, casting rainbows

over everything, making it known as sacred.

I take small steps into that light.

I feel the love, like God dreaming, making life.

Balanced, drawing on every source of

energy, breathing slowly for strength,

I touch you again.

Joanna Wiebe, November 15, 1988

…flying, I’m immune to poisons. Found
skulled bottles at mother’s cave and
devised cocktails.

I’ve scarcely had my feet on the ground

since dropped by this woman, my mother.

I’m in pain if I don’t follow custom, or
awkward desire, but I don’t see roses,
forget my name, it’s such a distinction.

…want to be a vacant blue like the edge of skim milk
in a cup without a saucer,
clean curve the memory of a handle,
balanced on the back of my hand,

“HOPE” spelled out on the china in gold letters
half washed away.

Joanna Wiebe, 1984

Dense dark blood dies here,
lacking impulse toward a door.
A busy flood to compress, chattering:
Where’s the exit? breath? light? fuel?

Could someone touch the place
where the heart begins? One beat.

The sea layers itself into currents
of thick denial and open need.
Towering surges travel the boundaries
of those currents; diastole, systole:
kiss clean air.

Joanna Wiebe, 1984