How it happens
Words wing.
Soar in my mind on gusts of worry or joy,
swoop like precision kestrels into the shadowy depths of my knowing
yet even with my intuition firmly in flight, I slip into a sliver of eye
inside the tornado of love & I fall –
The yang of departure like clear blue sky, comforting & vast
tempts this curious language, flits over treetops,
nuzzles mountain peaks, delivers me to the distant
dreamlands of discovery even when
my body is here at the dining room table & the pen
in my hand speaks to the page like two souls
reuniting in the heart-jolting spark of remembrance.
VANESSA SHIELDS, writer 