THE TURNING
by Rowan Mangan
I.
My sweet darlings,
however did you stay afloat for so long
and never suspect you were
built to breathe underwater?
Why did you never toss thoughts
around in three dimensions,
never loose them like dragonflies
into the deep sky?
How could you fear falling?
Didn’t you see the spiders
stringing safety nets
across the earth every day, just in case?
II.
Instead, you tore at this world, and I watched.
I felt the air’s grim thickening, saw the waters rise.
You were huddled at the precipice—at the very brink,
my loves—and still bellowing for more.
What crucial inspiration turned you at the last?
I’ll never know what broke over you,
and with what calamity, clamor
or grace—
but when you knelt, as one, it was a mighty sight.
You placed your hunger on the ground
and left it to lie among the gadgetry of old logics,
beside the corpses of cruelty and greed.
You were exquisite to me then, long-legged and bright-eyed,
built of gravel and stardust; oh,
my sweet, funny loves. My unfurling galaxy, my
pebble-scatter of promises.
III.
And so we came to the age of the great unbuilding,
where everyone’s name is stillness.
Here, day gathers you into the deep magic of play.
Here, night powders you with the ancient magic of rest.
It’s a time of dragonflies.
So be soft in your hearts, dear hearts,
for we are all cast shining and short-lived into the sky—
And allow your face to take the shape of wonder
when your children ask again to hear the tale
of the time you almost broke the world.
