Child of my heart

So I told him to paint a picture
in his mind of a place where
he had been closest to happiness. He spoke

of the dunes, the willow shrubs
that became impromptu forts
and the ravens playing
in the sand-stirred air. But then

he said he couldn’t make the feeling
come, and
sometimes
he wished
he’d never
lived on this earth
at all.

But I believe, at night, he unlocks
the cage he has built
and allows his soul to fly,
dreamside.

When that soul must return
at ravenrise
to slide over the sill and back under,
I imagine it carries
beneath its arm
a slice of the predawn sky,
and from this

it makes its bed.


Rachel Westfall
November 26, 2008