Morning, Green Tea, the Efforts

The quiet places hide
in the space where
important papers gather.

They are drawn, as I,
to that spot of sunlight
on maple floorboards,

the space all around the mobile
only touched with bright
blue, magenta, green, orange, yellow.

It is not the lifting
but the dropping things off
into forever that is hard.

But there you go, flutter up
in spring warmth like
the wakened monarchs of Michoacán,

you with important documents
gripped tight in imminent approach
to the grim-faced immigration officer.

But I don’t have to cross borders.
I can sit here in a pool of light
until the sun is high at last

and all the fists open,
the silenced voices speak,
and I am ready.

Carol Hamilton has recent publications in Paper Street, Common Ground, Louisiana Review, Pontiac Review, Sanskrit. Louisiana Literature, Off the Coast and others. She has  published 17 books, most recently, SUCH DEATHS. She is a former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma and has been nominated seven times for a Pushcart Prize.