In Memory of Our Friend Joy Craddick

She is a bead of rainwater at the top of the ridge pendulous on the new branch of green sprouting maple

She is the cloud rising or falling who can tell there in the canyon making love to the creek as it rushes through dancing over under and against the granite boulders still lodged happily where flood left them

She is the sentinel crow mounted atop live oak as we descend into the switchback

She is the lilac burgeoning in faint purple clusters in the wet fragile bushes of the town

She is the smoke on the cheek of the woman on her porch coffee in hand phone pressed to her ear

She is the broad dark span of wings outstretched as the great blue heron soars over the quiet road

She is the laughter of the a small girl in the corner of an eye in the curve of a bridge in a sudden step of the curb in the sleight of hand of the clown on the plaza

She is the release of an audience into the afternoon their applause clinging and singing in their clothes the wool the modern fibers the leather feather weave and braid button and belt

She is the teeth crowded into the smile of an old woman on a bicycle bent into the hill

She is the railroad tie thickening underfoot

She is the long endless reach of the stainless steel rail how the spikes pin the incongruous together and invite the journey into the open passage through mountains where the emigrant fell to his knees by the spring and cried out in despair

She is the hand touching your arm as the breath leans into you

She is Medicine Buddha

She is Christ's smile

She is Muhammad's fierce gift

She is prayer flags unrolled and tied up into the wind on the most auspicious morning

She is the circle of women remembering their grandmother's stories as the long braid is cut and the head shaved before the surgeon's cut

She is the daughter wielding the scissors

She is the youngest one crying for the first time

She is the last cry and the birth of a sigh at midnight

She is the fire in the hearth before it is set

She is the snow in the gap in that brief wink of sunlight

She is the shovel left in the ground and the thrush gripping the handle

She is the worm working the onion peel the coffee grounds the green trimmings and castaway grains of rice soaked in shoyu

She is a hollow vibration slipping into the second chamber of the black walnut flute in the key of G or was it F sharp?

She is the voice of my father embedded in an oak tree

She is the ballerina without points liberated from the wings last seen tiptoeing like a ring-necked dove over the rooftops

She is the wheel the rim the spokes and whirring mile the spinning question

She is an opening and the memory of a door

She is the alpha wave trading places with the beta wave

She is the gift of the ocean and the emptiness of a boy's pocket

She is the key turning in the lock

She is the dust on the page a list undoing itself punctuation pretending to be invisible

She is pain trembling for its very existence a vial of truth in the hesitation that comes between breaths

She is the palm of your hand passing over the forehead clearing a second thought to make way for every first thought

She is the quiet battle in the vast plain

She is the small heart in the humming wire

She is the preoccupied mind occupied with suffering in the motel they call this life

She is a window cleaner a waitress the man snaking his hose from an air compressor to your flat tire

She is the scent of pure joy on the wrists the twist of sage and the allure of the tattooed bic lighter

She is the light that is left that was always here and never left

She is a soft footstep heard overhead a gentle greeting

She is two eyes widening with love and compassion

She is a small furry creature curled into a cushion made by the first woman

She is a slight shift in the way you stand an inclination of the head

She is the grief you take out of your purse at the end of the day

She is the relief the release the repeating syllables of prayer snapping and cracking in the cast iron stove the recognition of this life in the mirror the fingertips against the temple walls the permission the flight from the garden the illusion and the descent of painted scenery when you least expect it

She is the living treasure weeping on the edge of the stage and the fox leaping into the piano

She is the word now appearing like dregs at the bottom of your glass