Marks - Tift Merritt

An offering here in my winter coat

Touch my face and point me home

The ropes of time tangle the threads of hope

Where I throw my birds, dare I watch them go

I think I’ll come apart, how deep they leave their mark

Like the leaves of the shady tree

Wishes turn down inside of me

And wake me here on this foreign shore

Trembling that I run so far

Before a boat departs, how deep it leaves its mark

Let me speak what your heart can see

Roll and gather and open me

In my whispering and my crying out

Like dancers turning in light and dark

Here on my weighted heart, how deep they leave their mark

And here in my winter coat

How you pretend there’s something that you don’t know

In the stillness down where a blackbird sings

Its song of nothing and everything

The counting stops and starts.

How deep it leaves its mark