The Peace

When peace came there
was a song in my head
and the river
moving in all
directions. What distance
she arrived? The sun,
a silent wound, in momentary

surrender through the trees, resembles
what was torn apart
and brought back again. Voices
fade in the reeds and mark
the river’s beginnings. Time, a holy
spoken name, is said

without naming. The river’s
light, a tide
within a tide, a salve—
luminous and fixed.
There is only one
body that is given
and now this body is
the riverbed’s fascia, skeletal, transparent—
rock strewn patterns, her spine, her
lips wide—Yes,
through the trees—

I hear a woman singing.

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Maureen Alsop, PhD is a psychologist, writer and artist. She is the author of eight poetry collections, including visual poetry, and an experimental/hybrid novel, Today Yesterday After My Death, a finalist for the Big Other. Her writing has appeared in numerous journals including AGNI, The Kenyon Review, and South Dakota Review, among others. She is the winner of several poetry prizes including those from Harpur Palate and Bitter Oleander and a recent Roderick Centre Fellowship.