Resting Rhythm
My heart event this year
rearranged the course of my internal river,
cleared away the stones and boulders,
changed the way I look in the mirror.
Not long after, I dreamed my 98-year-old mother
had adopted a little girl, and I knew.
She’s my new life running ahead,
chasing a ball, flying down the street
on a skateboard, running around
the river’s bend, racing yet poised
at a new turn on the sunrise street.
After everything inside me nearly stopped,
I awoke to a new heartbeat.
The doctor said to rest. I rested like a river.
I flowed in silence around my quiet room.
I counted the beats of an ocean
that can burst within, but I made it beat
as a slow gift, like manna from heaven
dropping into my mouth
a rhythm of resting in gratitude
that poured and poured through.
rearranged the course of my internal river,
cleared away the stones and boulders,
changed the way I look in the mirror.
Not long after, I dreamed my 98-year-old mother
had adopted a little girl, and I knew.
She’s my new life running ahead,
chasing a ball, flying down the street
on a skateboard, running around
the river’s bend, racing yet poised
at a new turn on the sunrise street.
After everything inside me nearly stopped,
I awoke to a new heartbeat.
The doctor said to rest. I rested like a river.
I flowed in silence around my quiet room.
I counted the beats of an ocean
that can burst within, but I made it beat
as a slow gift, like manna from heaven
dropping into my mouth
a rhythm of resting in gratitude
that poured and poured through.
Rachel Dacus is the author of four novels: Undoing Time, The Time Gatherer, The Renaissance Club, and The Invisibles. Her poetry collections are Arabesque, Gods of Water and Air, Femme au Chapeau, and Earth Lessons. Her work has also appeared in journals and anthologies that include Boulevard, Gargoyle, and Prairie Schooner, and Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Art: The Bells in the Bell Tower at the University, oil on canvas, Rebecca Pyle