(no subject)
Do we all just become a collection of anecdotes?
Patched together with darling idiosyncrasies?
Do we assemble our pasts to create a face?
Are we more than that at all?
It can’t be erased.
What’s done is done -
And what’s us is either
A shoddy collection
Of cracked seashells from
When we couldn’t hear the ocean
Or too scary to ever own up to -
The ferocity of now being the same as death.
And we look into a pair of eyes
With the right sort of morning light
And they gleam, they gleam -
Hundreds of eyes -
Memories of death foretold and summer candlelight,
The gentle fire, soft and leaping
With music in each dancing spark,
Danger kept at bay -
But there are the fires fierce and unforgiving
Rising up, we knew, we saw, when tucked safely in our beds
Would they devour us?
These demon fire-eyes
Reminders.
Will they devour us still?
Or just be shuffled out
Of the raggedy stack of memories?
Dealt to us a losing hand, and still we place our money down.
We sift, we stutter - rummaging through the debris of the past,
Aided only by the stifling chains of words.
Words mark the zagging clank of the path to home
The path through morning midnights and under arrogant moons.
Rise and fall of collected knowledge.
Evening presses hard on the sting of remembrance.
The evening, when our laughter faded and was swallowed up
Was it us at all?
Past loves, past lives
Echo out of the trees multiplied by shadow,
Echo out of our multiplied memories.
Twist our words with hidden accents and intents.
Will they devour us?
Do they judge? Do they begrudge the telling?
Cling to the silence of morning and let it fill.
Even on the hottest days, the sun brings forgiveness.
The clearest day comes into being with a kind of haze -
Envision the supreme forgiveness of the dawn.
Maybe it could teach me, as it lingers and fades,
Of a god
Not one of regret or sadness.
Instead there is the evening -
When I remember love
Love for that certain spot among the trees
For the doe that stared me down in the reflection of the lake
For each fleeting mystery of light and dark
Love for the sound of water
And how that sound is echoed
in a friend’s midnight sigh, in a lover’s muttered lurch.
How the sound is echoed in silence.
They sit watching, our pasts and futures,
feet planted firmly, harbouring a slight frown
eyebrows furrowed - and when it all comes down,
what is the final judgment?
Have we distorted ourselves beyond redemption?
What will it be that tears us apart in the end -
The gentle monstrous sound,
the roaring echo,
Or the searing silence?
Just a regrettable stack of memories
Shaped into anecdotes
cheaper with each telling.
Sold once and again, for no profit
But the taunting of endless midnights
And the promise of forgiving mornings.
What do we need forgiveness for
(other than life itself)?
And will it devour us? Has it already?
Stillness is never still and silence is noisiest of all.
It will devour us, but it hasn’t yet.
We hunted fireflies in the summer
Cradling them carefully in cupped hands
With studious gentility
Set free as soon as they did us the honour
Of tickling our unassuming skin.
Forgiveness lurks in both dark and light.
Remember when we couldn’t hear the ocean? We walked along barefoot collecting sand around our toenails with our pant legs rolled up the icy water teasing our kneecaps. You walked in the dry sand where your footprints were soft; I where mine might be erased. Looking back to see them fade - some all at once, some wave by wave. Gone in a flash, or lingering for a time. Always the beach was empty and we longed to see the fishermen, longed for a morning fog or an evening song from a quickly darkening sky. When we couldn’t hear the ocean: past present and future. We walk; you with your shaky footprints, I with quickly erased traces, swept away along shifting rocks and scurrying creatures, footprints gone and never quite there. Your marks were left with those of countless others, stomped down unrecognizable.
Sometimes we couldn’t hear because we didn’t listen. A far off tune from deep inside stole the rhythm of the day. Sometimes we couldn’t hear because we’d forgotten how. We returned again and again to relearn what we should have known for eternities - eternities past, eternities future; eternities above and below. Eternities without, eternities within. We could spend our lives trying to learn what we’ve always known.
Like how to hear the ocean.
-- march, 2007
Patched together with darling idiosyncrasies?
Do we assemble our pasts to create a face?
Are we more than that at all?
It can’t be erased.
What’s done is done -
And what’s us is either
A shoddy collection
Of cracked seashells from
When we couldn’t hear the ocean
Or too scary to ever own up to -
The ferocity of now being the same as death.
And we look into a pair of eyes
With the right sort of morning light
And they gleam, they gleam -
Hundreds of eyes -
Memories of death foretold and summer candlelight,
The gentle fire, soft and leaping
With music in each dancing spark,
Danger kept at bay -
But there are the fires fierce and unforgiving
Rising up, we knew, we saw, when tucked safely in our beds
Would they devour us?
These demon fire-eyes
Reminders.
Will they devour us still?
Or just be shuffled out
Of the raggedy stack of memories?
Dealt to us a losing hand, and still we place our money down.
We sift, we stutter - rummaging through the debris of the past,
Aided only by the stifling chains of words.
Words mark the zagging clank of the path to home
The path through morning midnights and under arrogant moons.
Rise and fall of collected knowledge.
Evening presses hard on the sting of remembrance.
The evening, when our laughter faded and was swallowed up
Was it us at all?
Past loves, past lives
Echo out of the trees multiplied by shadow,
Echo out of our multiplied memories.
Twist our words with hidden accents and intents.
Will they devour us?
Do they judge? Do they begrudge the telling?
Cling to the silence of morning and let it fill.
Even on the hottest days, the sun brings forgiveness.
The clearest day comes into being with a kind of haze -
Envision the supreme forgiveness of the dawn.
Maybe it could teach me, as it lingers and fades,
Of a god
Not one of regret or sadness.
Instead there is the evening -
When I remember love
Love for that certain spot among the trees
For the doe that stared me down in the reflection of the lake
For each fleeting mystery of light and dark
Love for the sound of water
And how that sound is echoed
in a friend’s midnight sigh, in a lover’s muttered lurch.
How the sound is echoed in silence.
They sit watching, our pasts and futures,
feet planted firmly, harbouring a slight frown
eyebrows furrowed - and when it all comes down,
what is the final judgment?
Have we distorted ourselves beyond redemption?
What will it be that tears us apart in the end -
The gentle monstrous sound,
the roaring echo,
Or the searing silence?
Just a regrettable stack of memories
Shaped into anecdotes
cheaper with each telling.
Sold once and again, for no profit
But the taunting of endless midnights
And the promise of forgiving mornings.
What do we need forgiveness for
(other than life itself)?
And will it devour us? Has it already?
Stillness is never still and silence is noisiest of all.
It will devour us, but it hasn’t yet.
We hunted fireflies in the summer
Cradling them carefully in cupped hands
With studious gentility
Set free as soon as they did us the honour
Of tickling our unassuming skin.
Forgiveness lurks in both dark and light.
Remember when we couldn’t hear the ocean? We walked along barefoot collecting sand around our toenails with our pant legs rolled up the icy water teasing our kneecaps. You walked in the dry sand where your footprints were soft; I where mine might be erased. Looking back to see them fade - some all at once, some wave by wave. Gone in a flash, or lingering for a time. Always the beach was empty and we longed to see the fishermen, longed for a morning fog or an evening song from a quickly darkening sky. When we couldn’t hear the ocean: past present and future. We walk; you with your shaky footprints, I with quickly erased traces, swept away along shifting rocks and scurrying creatures, footprints gone and never quite there. Your marks were left with those of countless others, stomped down unrecognizable.
Sometimes we couldn’t hear because we didn’t listen. A far off tune from deep inside stole the rhythm of the day. Sometimes we couldn’t hear because we’d forgotten how. We returned again and again to relearn what we should have known for eternities - eternities past, eternities future; eternities above and below. Eternities without, eternities within. We could spend our lives trying to learn what we’ve always known.
Like how to hear the ocean.
-- march, 2007