Natalie Marino

Letting Go
.

Several summers ago I was empty as a room.
I opened windows

looking for something devout in the sky.

Collecting peaches in the garden
I imagined the sun making a halo of my hair.

My attempt at daylight saving has been
a desperate grasp of before and after,
of cause and consequence,

a desperate need to hold onto duality.

What is letting go
but an exercise in bewilderment?

If I’m honest, I don’t know
when I changed into my current form.

Tonight I traced the migration of blackbirds
with my finger—

the lessening light of evening went down
in its ordinary pose.

Buoyed by hope
I said a prayer that was less a cry
against the end

and more an acceptance of the ineffable.

Ode to a Young Girl at the Window
.

A late evening in March,
the start

of my daughter’s twelfth year
and the somber sky
gives a performance

for the house on the hill—
the moon hands sorrow
to yellow stars

and a melody of snow
plays its last mellow notes,

like an old mother’s slender
night tune,

like an old mother’s last sight
of the young girl

at a window
with white daffodils.