if i am to allow for this
grief to be a failure
in my creativity, then
it seems permissive
to view this sadness as
an attack
of the relentless heart.
and yes, an attacking
heart may culminate in death,
though that is the end result of every
beginning, so why not revel
in the fervency of conviction?
walking through the shafted sunlight
of this day, a day given
to thanks, and i am partitioned
into columns by the checkerboard
of sun and shadow. skin,
sweet in its mourning, warmed
by a round-lipped sun kiss. skin,
sour in its solemnity, frozen
by the shadow of all that’s quietly
walked away. even in shrieking
terror, a quiet departure.
i departed from the immediacy
of the land i once clung to,
a surrounding ocean, no longer
roaring its whispered instruction.
absence, and i find difficulty
in interpreting the language of ocean
tide; i have fled without intention
the shores of my metaphor, am now more
fully encircled by a substance which can
annihilate me, though offers itself only
intangibly. my legs, allowed
free range of an island’s limitations,
feel stiff in the knee. walking
with a jerking gait, my torso
gifted loose connection with my
anchorage to the ground. i have gained
weight in these last months,
though perhaps these
are the first months.
this weight
gain has done little
to keep me from floating up and
away from the land of my attachment.
the relentless heart,
it tethers me to this
desire for creation.
sadness stifles
my attempts to inhabit a
new wing
in my chambered house.
perhaps i am still
building, or perhaps there
has never been any
need for another
room.
earlier, just moments ago,
i was floating
and stumbling through this
impossible town. the
mountains were held in
such kind relief,
to the unbothered patience
of our wise sky. in cloud and
in sun, the mountains up there
above us. they seem to have
found ease in their place on this planet;
this imagined ease, perhaps born of hope.
we seek the kindness of ease and
try to steady our skittering heart and
hope for something to come from the growing
emptiness in our brief body.
it is uncomfortable
to grow towards the oblivion
of peace, the unfettered joy
of hopelessness.
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