National Poetry Month: Day #21

Today's poem is for my friend Tea, who deserves all the bright blessings this world can offer:

The Secret of Flight

In darker times,
when science was magic
and the devil, not God, dwelled
in the details,
any woman ripe
for burning knew what to pick
from the hillside greens
to make herself
transcendent:
moonkshood, henbane, deadly
nightshade, mandrake, hemlock,
nothing safe or pretty
as the garden rose,
she picked and dried and ground
into oil and spread it thin
across her skin
and spread herself
across the sky, floating
like an angel
toward the moon.

©2004 L.A. Smith.