Poem - Coming in from the wilderness

Coming in from the wilderness (to the St Brides Community)

I came barefoot from the desert with rough grains of yesterday chaffing blisters between my toes. I came with dust in my eyes

and the winds of sorrow in my hair. You washed my feet
in goats milk, bound them
in a poultice of peppermint

leaves, dropped your tears into my eyes, brushed my hair with twigs of rosemary, fed me dates and unleven bread

wrapped me in a whisper
of God’s breath
and sang my songline back to me
as you looked at me with my Father’s eyes.

© Cate Jacobs