of a star
our ancestry
ancient
billions of years old
it no longer matters
so much
that my family
records were torched
in a war
if in fact
the peasants’ names were
even ever recorded
at all
only three generations back
the tree of my life
stretches back
as far as the winds of time
on the memory of
fireball exploding
I forgot this ancient story
of our original birth
yet I have carried this memory
like a black hole in every cell
waiting to explode
to touch wholeness
my billions of beings
lie in me
like Matryoshka dolls
only this time it is
billions of nested dolls...
all the way back
all the way in
to the tiny seed doll
the doll who does not crack open
but remains whole
whole
and holy
dressed in black
then swirling
out
becoming
white
then red
Wisdom comes riding
on the breath of life
at the edge of death
on silent wings
she drops her fire feathers
my eyes peel back
my whole body unfurls
remembering
I rummage through
the rubble of a cluttered life
picking through the molten leaves
and hubris on the forest floor
I call my life
I find the shimmering
rainbow lit feather
I gaze at you
Firebird Feather
and I know you
a capricious backward wind
blows you away
before I make the mad mistake
of trying
to hold you
to catch you
to capture you
we dance on
the wind and me
following
your lead
Fire Feather
you dancing me
onward
inward
deeper
rose perfumed air
breathes me
and I remember myself
as a rose tree
spilling my petals
up and over
like a water fountain
remembering
becoming
myself
dissipating light forms
dancing
leaping
up and over
star light dancing
me inside out
I am dancing
patterns of star-born rose light
shimmering in the
centre of my
garden of delight
© Deborah Prokipchuk Ackley 2007
