What I Believe

By Kimberly Blaeser

after Michael Blumenthal

I believe the weave of cotton

will support my father's knees,

but no indulgences will change hands.

I believe nothing folds easily,

but that time will crease—

retrain the mind.

I believe in the arrowheads of words

and I believe in silence.

I believe the rattle of birch leaves

can shake sorrow from my bones,

but that we all become bare at our own pace.

I believe the songs of childhood

follow us into the kettles of age,

but the echoes will not disturb the land.

I believe the reach of the kayak paddle

can part the blue corridor of aloneness,

and that eyes we see in water are never our own.

Copyright Credit: Poem copyright ©2019 by Kimberly Blaeser, “What I Believe” from Copper Yearning, (Holy Cow! Press, 2019.) Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher.