Sunday, April 22, 2018

Weekend Poem

Enfolded

Driving highway west in the early morning
My tires thrum over the ridges of the road
(A rippling staccato rhythm
Like the pulsing overture to an ancient fertility rite).
Hazy moon low hung in the indigo gray west,
A pale thumbprint smudged against ash
While orange embers of the rising sun flash in the mirror,
Chasing after another fading night.
A new day always hunts for its dawn
While I'm caught between what used to be and what’s coming,
Enfolded within the dying and soon to be born,
Suspended in the limbo gray of morning.
Which is always the present
Which is the time for mourning


Pull over to the side and stop chasing,
Stop trying to sculpt form from ash.
I feel the gathering sun against my back
The darkness ahead is just my own shadow
Casting a sliver of shade onto the past.
Oh if night would only push back, resist,
Arch its back into the new day.
To be curled up into a singularity
That can never go forward, never go back,
Riveted to the road, time suspended,
A row of infants swaddled in blankets
Disembodied faces, wrinkled and sleeping and calm.
To stanchion one’s body against the searing sun
While reaching for the last strand of fleeing night
(To make it all stop):
It’s a strain no one can bear for long.
Something always breaks
While the rest of the world wakes

No comments: