Poetry

Goddess Rising

A solstice poem

I once saw her slip from the sea on a solstice evening, a satined heaving of breast and thigh rising against an Indian silk sky dancing on the sheen of arctic waters.

The fabric of time, of seasons, stretched and taughtened in rhythm with the sinking troughs and rising, cresting waves.

And here and there, a woman’s form emerged, a dip of shoulder, a toe of stone, an eye of light winking from unfathomable depths.

They say, you see, that it’s pure luck to catch a glimpse of the goddess rising on the eve of winter’s breath.

I caught myself dissolving, melting into the swell of the moment when time stands still.

And I almost fell into that writhing, rising sea, from thirsting for a better glimpse of the nymph of the waters, the one who is the daughter and the mother of all that will ever be.

She stretched and sighed, and the fabric shifted, rippled gold dripping across the curve of a bosom, gathering into a waist of spilt-ink indigo.

And then, she was gone.

They say that she chooses this moment, suspended in time between sunset and sunrise to appear, to break free from one world and to hurl time forward by a season, just by tossing her glance across the waters.

And if you’re fortunate enough to see her, you will be forever changed.

You will have tasted the essence of eternity.

Erika Burkhalter is a yogi, neurophilosopher, cat-mom, photographer, and lover of travel and nature, spreading her love and amazement for Mother Earth’s glories, one photo, poem or story at a time. (MS Neuropsychology, MA Yoga Studies).

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Photos and story ©Erika Burkhalter. All rights reserved.