My arms are bloody and my boat has a hole in it

The river’s glacial melt filling my craft

Only a few fathoms from shore

Nestled among the mountains

Seeking out the convent

I laid my hand on old horizons

As the water subsumed me

Swift with summer’s snowmelt

Ashore a fiery light

Reached out with evanescent fingers

Tickling the water’s surface

Ripples peaking and cresting

Just enough to prevent my drowning

Light faster than breath.

I saw the dusk through the shroud of sleep

Woodland lilies reaching by morning

For the rising yellow sun

Red and pink secrets unfurl and hurry into my soul

Eyes aflutter, sleep fading, the mechanical matron disappeared

With the blinking of my eyes

A metallic flash among the meadow

Past forest, stream, and snow

Into the craggy gray stone

Impassable except to those whose feet

Need not touch ground to run

Whose lungs need not oxygen to respire

Whose hearts need not blood to beat

The android abbess of the meadow

Saved me from my drowning

And for that I am grateful

As I tread the path homeward.