Poem: "Shine"
The first draft of this was written on January 8, 1997. It is more hopeful than I was at the time, but as hopeful as I desperately needed to be.
-----
Shine
I was pure polished copper,
deftly etched to show each strand of hair,
each lash,
each line on each palm.
My reason for being was
to gleam in sunlight like laughter made visible,
to glow in moonlight like a dream of the coming dawn.
I brought joy always,
I thought,
never knew of such a thing as
jealousy
until her majesty's guards
stole me from the sun
and the sun from me.
I knew my friends would come
as soon as the queen was dead.
I taught myself to lose count of the days;
it was easy when each was the same.
On the night of the mourning bells,
the crowbar easily broke
the mass of rust that used to be a lock,
and I ascended the stone stairs without aid
toward a blinding beam of light
that came from a crescent moon.
Oh, but what the sunrise showed -
as if the darkness had been
a thing with mass, heavier than air,
that settled like dew on my skin,
now black and green mottled
like a charred tree fallen
and covered with moss and death.
But tarnish isn't just a covering,
dirt from outside to be washed away -
no, those are my pure atoms,
joined now to something else
but still made of me.
I held on to all of it for weeks,
but there's no way to separate the two.
We tried to rub me clean,
but it would have taken years,
and it was in every crevice,
each etched hair, each garment fold.
I would have to bathe in an ocean
as pure as I had been before.
They came with me to the shore that night,
but I waded into the vinegar waves alone.
Blinded by tears, suffocating,
nerves inflamed as my skin dissolved,
pulsing blood on fire, but
I held my breath and bore the burn
until there was nothing left
I needed to lose.
I pulled myself from this stinging sea,
stepped into the moonlight,
and saw that I was not what I had been:
once-well-defined lines
were now blurred by the absence
of what once was there.
I will never regain it.
But as they rubbed me dry with
clean white flannel, their fingers
brushed my skin and halted,
hands transfixed by memory.
I am changed, they said, but still
the one they loved always.
As the tide receded at dawn,
I dared seek my reflection
in a still, sandy pool.
The sharp creases of my gown are gone,
but not the drape and line;
each delicate hair has disappeared,
but still the braids remain.
There is nothing here I do not want,
nothing I need that I don't now hold.
It's a subtler luster than before,
but in this seashore sunrise,
still,
still I shine.
Originally posted at http://violetcheetah.dreamwidth.org/70921.html. Feel free to comment there
comments
-----
Shine
I was pure polished copper,
deftly etched to show each strand of hair,
each lash,
each line on each palm.
My reason for being was
to gleam in sunlight like laughter made visible,
to glow in moonlight like a dream of the coming dawn.
I brought joy always,
I thought,
never knew of such a thing as
jealousy
until her majesty's guards
stole me from the sun
and the sun from me.
I knew my friends would come
as soon as the queen was dead.
I taught myself to lose count of the days;
it was easy when each was the same.
On the night of the mourning bells,
the crowbar easily broke
the mass of rust that used to be a lock,
and I ascended the stone stairs without aid
toward a blinding beam of light
that came from a crescent moon.
Oh, but what the sunrise showed -
as if the darkness had been
a thing with mass, heavier than air,
that settled like dew on my skin,
now black and green mottled
like a charred tree fallen
and covered with moss and death.
But tarnish isn't just a covering,
dirt from outside to be washed away -
no, those are my pure atoms,
joined now to something else
but still made of me.
I held on to all of it for weeks,
but there's no way to separate the two.
We tried to rub me clean,
but it would have taken years,
and it was in every crevice,
each etched hair, each garment fold.
I would have to bathe in an ocean
as pure as I had been before.
They came with me to the shore that night,
but I waded into the vinegar waves alone.
Blinded by tears, suffocating,
nerves inflamed as my skin dissolved,
pulsing blood on fire, but
I held my breath and bore the burn
until there was nothing left
I needed to lose.
I pulled myself from this stinging sea,
stepped into the moonlight,
and saw that I was not what I had been:
once-well-defined lines
were now blurred by the absence
of what once was there.
I will never regain it.
But as they rubbed me dry with
clean white flannel, their fingers
brushed my skin and halted,
hands transfixed by memory.
I am changed, they said, but still
the one they loved always.
As the tide receded at dawn,
I dared seek my reflection
in a still, sandy pool.
The sharp creases of my gown are gone,
but not the drape and line;
each delicate hair has disappeared,
but still the braids remain.
There is nothing here I do not want,
nothing I need that I don't now hold.
It's a subtler luster than before,
but in this seashore sunrise,
still,
still I shine.
Originally posted at http://violetcheetah.dreamwidth.org/70921.html. Feel free to comment there
comments