Reliquary
The house finches start with a tree layer
to remember the first sanctuary, thin
scales of evergreen laid in a circle plied
with batting, tufts of shed fur, twigs woven
through seams, a shape to fill. After I
carried home the smooth wood capsule
I submerged my hand into my mother’s
ashes, pieces of her coated my
skin but there was nothing to hold and in
the end I wasted some of her down
the sink. Now I know I want bones, something
that screams purpose. If it comes to that I
will take your skull, to be close to where
your thoughts loosen into dreams. With the eye
of a neolithic ancestor I’d see the
utility— soup bowl, censer curling smoke through
sockets, cradle for treasure.
I’d carry you home like the cardinal
I saw last spring heading for the nest, chest
puffed, a long ribbon of cellophane packing
tape trailing from his beak, the sun sawing
colors through the invisible.
Klara Seddon is a writer living in the Hudson Valley of New York. Her poetry inhabits the daily enchantments and mysteries of plants and other land spirits. Klara’s work has appeared in Amsterdam Review, Women & Performance, and other publications.