Holy Ground

Rain and cloud and mist smothered the barrier island
in North Carolina days before Christmas on this
darkest solstice night. When it cleared,
we bundled up and crossed the boardwalk over dunes
of oat grass and scrub. The fierce wind whipped,
waves crashed white on the shore sparkling with shells
broken to bits in a light so bright you could read by it.

The next evening, the skies still clear, we repeated
the ritual, the full moon blinding white and huge,
hanging over an ocean tamed, gentle waves unraveling
like silver ribbon, sprinkling foam and rhinestones
on the sand. Orion’s belt and sword aglow,
we stood arm in arm without a word.

Silent night, holy night, I almost chanted.
I had to remove my shoes, I was surely on holy ground,
had to feel the rise and fall, the cold shock of being born,
waves washing over my feet sinking in the freezing sand.

Who’d stood here in 1866, the last time this perigee moon
kissed its companion earth? Battered by Civil War,
black and red-skinned farmers, sharecroppers,
fishermen tired and thin –– what were their prayers
and longings as they planted their feet in this wet land?
Did they sing All is calm, all is bright?

Who will stand here in a hundred years –– if this island
Isn’t underwater –– when the ageless moon will again
be closest to earth? May they too marvel at the moon,
proclaiming: We have seen a great light.
– Kathy Wade

Kathy Wade’s poetry has been published in various journals related to the teaching of writing, as well as Shelter in This Place: Meditations on 2020. For two years, she was Poet Laureate for her Cincinnati neighborhood of Walnut Hills. She published her novel Perfection in 2018. Her first collection of poetry, Every Now Is A Yes, was published this year.