From FarFarAway
Friday, March 21, 2008
Do we grow out of our fairy tales? Does that dreaming and feeling go when we move off to our work and our families, our routine and process?
It’s still in my head. In my heart. But why isn’t it coming out any more? Is there a taboo, once you hit an age or an epoch, that the personal stays just that, the personal? Can we only get angry, or get happy, or react to a specific event, rather than sustain or draw upon what is within us?
We used to write long letters. Letters that didn’t even necessarily say anything. But they had much that was US in them. Maybe I’m romanticizing the past. Lending too much weight to what was a children’s game. But it seemed real and heartfelt then. Can’t see why it would’ve changed.
Is there a way to rebuild that fantastic castle? Is that horizon merely a mirage now? Is it worth it, or should practical replace pretty?
Poetry, not sufficient, is code. It’ll probably never be read for what it is (and I doubt I want all of it to, for the trial that lurks within).
I think I want it. I don’t know how to define it. I don’t think. I’m not sure. It’s something that still casts a shadow, persistently returning over and over. So I don’t believe all this is waste, or silliness. Turn off the romance? What? That’s insane. Kill our hearts? Focus them on driving? Where is the wonder of Creation, if not between us? Can one look at a span of blue sky, the clouds, and not catch their breath? Or do we just have to settle down and remark upon the nice shade of blue and the warm weather?
I haven’t asked you in ages. Where are your shadows now? Do you have memories that still lurk in the corners, memories that don’t fade? Do you still have that light from 14 years ago? Do you want to bang your fists against the stones as I do, against the things that keep you inside you? I never let all that out. I failed my attempts. In many ways. What do we do with this? Or am I speaking to ghosts who were banished long ago.
They haven’t left me.
Wisdom, faded, as smoke from an altar
Of stones and water there is no memory
Beyond simple words on sheets shredded
No faint hint, no whisper of hands falling
That, so, in moments gone, were clutched
White pressed, to each other
Wisdom twinkling, seething under its breath
To return, falling upwards, stumbling onward
Upon the stones as mists, clear, lingering
For one way is found not through but into
Something elusive as if a mirror in a pool
Rippling, solid words unscratched, unmarred
In travel, touch or love
Breath soft, of fog on moonlight and elusive
Tracks floating on sand, grain by grain
Turning back, and forth uncertainly, devilishly
Close to another sheen, a shard of mirror
Clouded at its edge, smoothed in the sand
Reflecting years, children under a sun
Eyes darkened by the closeness of a face
To earth on knees and hands, begging release
Or filling of a void left by the shattered altar.