At-one-ment

On the brick porch step sits one wise
wide-eyed child who scans yonder stretch of sky,
its vast expanse a canopy for her heart
and the greatness she senses out there, overhead

Every day she lives and learns will move 
her further from such certainty,
obscuring the joyous marriage of an open sky
and an equally unguarded child's heart

On today's dove gray 
bare branched Thanksgiving,
my soul flies searching for keys to a door
it thought would open no more

That innocent grace I knew then
and look for, once more, now,
observing fall's fast fading leaves, 
as they cover the ground like forgiveness

fills me with such an at-one-ment
here, in the nest of my heart:
child-self, world of dark and light,
this autumn woman growing young again

Arlene Gay Levine
First published in Valley Voices:A Literary Review
Volume 24 Fall 2024, Mississippi Valley State University