Celia Meade
Celia Meade is a poet, essayist, fiction writer and painter. She splits her time between Bronxville New York and Salt Spring Island, Canada. She attends Sarah Lawrence College, pursuing an MFA in poetry under the mentorship of American Academy of Poets Chancellor Marie Howe.
After the Storm
Your dream was this:
you went through a scan
that glowed purple and blue;
then (in the daylight hours)
a storm blew through
and took out all your power.
Ripped up by the roots,
tingling with pain,
exposed
to the swirl of blue air;
it took us all out,
and left wires coiled along the roadside.
We tripped on open suitcases
full of a warmer climate—
beach thongs and muumuus.
We came back to the dark.
The outage map lit up red,
and then there was no map.
The road was a toppled,
clear-cut forest,
a suede green carpet
until chain saws ripped through
thick logs at the road edge
and we could come out.
But you stayed home,
tended the fire,
and carried candles to the closet,
where you dressed all in red,
dirt caked on your face,
clothes mounded in corners.
This is the lesson:
you’re living too much
in your head,
in your purple,
lumped throat,
when your strength is below.
Shape a heart with your fingers
below your navel,
pull the red roots down
out of the air,
and plunge them back into the soil.
Bury them, bury them
so you can stand up,
shake the dirt off,
and face the sky.
Sheila-Na-Gig online 