[POEM] Sacrifice at the Top of a Sequoia

*Note: This poem utilizes Dr. Andrew Weil’s 4-7-8 breathing technique for its structure as well as adaptations of excerpts from Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Sacrifice at the Top of a Sequoia

And now, bodies

Could be bracelets, strung up with

Beads and breakable, and after,

The promises

They held will disintegrate

Into the ground like stirred into

Morning coffee—

Just at the second her arms

Outstretch like wings to fly, many

Septimus’s

Will dive out of their windows:

Fallen soldiers attempting to

Communicate

Something prudent through their deaths;

The living acts are never good

Enough: someone

Kneels beside their bed, clasps their

Hands together, and begs sotto

Voce for grace.

But here: it’s as if Isaac

Came to Mount Moriah without

Abraham, and

Swapped knife’s blood in the ram’s place,

Or if when they carried Christ to

Golgotha, they

Would be shocked to see Mary

Already on the cross instead.

There are only

Two moments she felt worthy

Of this love: The second-best was

When she had held

Another living creature,

And felt their heartbeat pervading

Throughout the whole

Machine and remembered that

Her body was more than meat for

The slaughterhouse—

The other instance was here,

In the Sierra Nevada

Mountains, where air

Could finally breathe and a

Warbler, like her, could have a world’s

View, and if God

Did not desire her to jump,

                Then why does she captain the wind?