Crones and Blooms

I lay down in the river

for you

and cool

while others are giving up

to steam

I bathe in waves of incense

and offer these years

that do not pass my lips

how sacred bounties are reserved

for ancestors and gods

I am cleansed in the humility

of calloused hands that do the man’s

and then the woman’s work

but do not let my heart turn hard

over winters without end

I turn the soil of sorrow underneath

for the promises of spring

in other incarnations where you will be the sun

and the rituals of patient crones

will yield their maiden’s blooms