Five Letters by Heather M. Browne

  I had a strange awareness this morning, early before the day was much of anything that it would be. But it has stayed with me for hours, a poem trying to find its words, its directions to my mind, to help me read its map. It’s a beautiful thing, really. How images, words, or lines trickle down and splatter upon the page. I have to write in ink. And for that I am wasteful of colorings and trees.

This morning I saw something new. Something striking. I was thinking of the word widow. A rather small word that holds so much of my life and so much of my heart. Just five letters. And what I saw today, for the first time is: WIDOW

W I DO W

And my heart cracked. Again. It’s been cracking a lot lately. And if I focus on this truth, that all that is within this profound and poignant word, surrounded by what looks like two arms raised up into the sky reaching, with a head smack dab in the center each wanting the blessings of Heaven and God. There were two, two sets of arms, two heads that both rejoiced in calling out so many years ago, proclaiming their lifelong promise: “I do”.

Heather M. Browne is a faith-based psychotherapist, recently nominated for the Pushcart Award, published in the Orange Room, Boston Literary Review, Page & Spine, Eunoia Review, Poetry Quarterly, Red Fez, Electric Windmill, Apeiron, The Lake, Knot, mad swirl. Red Dashboard published two collections: Directions of Folding and Altar Call of Trumpets.