poem: A Dull Knife

I am profoundly sad today.

   Shadows grew longer, overnight

and the odor of autumn

  can be discerned in the final

glowing embers of summer's inferno.

  The house, it seems

already smells of winter-

   stale rooms and stagnant air

heavy with pernicious glances

   as we stalk each other like cats

through spaces inhabited

       by dreams of commonality,

now worn common by familiarity.

 

And I cry, seemingly, for all things today.

   The grief of unwed turtles

preparing for hibernation, I own.

   Plus the tears of plovers

 adding salt to the ocean, as the birds

   set their gaze on eroding shorelines

south.

 

Chief Joseph said, "My heart is sick and sad"

   and I know what he meant.

Each measured breath only reminds me

       I am closer to my last.

  I ponder old people lost in their minds

         and children with no futures;

and I think my nation has decided, we no longer

  will stand to be counted.

 I think...

     ...maybe it is more than one summer

that is dying.

 

I have been told,

    some tears are prayers.

But I no longer feel the presence

of anything but my own thoughts

    in mine.

How does one return to the sacred?

 

I long to split this skin open

      with my own hand,

to escape its smothering confines

    to become larger than my limitation

more than my Self

      Live three times at once,

blaze my comet across this world's sky.

    I would catalog dreams in ounces

if I thought the process had merit;

 but this knife appears too dull for cutting-

       my words are too short

to reach an audience,

       and they die lonely deaths each day;

like this summer coming to close.

 

I can see this desire's demise

    in each crumbling road repaired

a little less each year,

    and in every wise elderly matron

      left by neighbors

to wither away in the loneliness

   of the obsolete,

  her pleas for a single listener

patted away by gentle but firm hands

   "there there- just drink your tea,

           we'll come back tomorrow."

 

And when I am honest

   while counting heartbeats,

in the still terror of the night

     the decayed sickly sweet

      smell of uselessness

is the scent on the winter breeze,

            and it scares me

     into sadness.

  

      

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[Mark]

Having read all four elements of this series, am now sitting here slackjawed, trying to process the depth of the sorrow-blended-with-hope, the lostness-frosted-with-inspiration, which you have had pushed remorselessly out of your self in them. Cannot even process the emotions flowing over and through me just now. You Rock, Rachael...

[Mary]

You say so much here- brilliant! Your opening lines say so much- "profoundly sad today" no longer sensing the prayer within a tear... weeping for all things. So human.

[nowhere]

do we choose are life ? do we choose are choices ? the world goes on around us , does it not invade?

[Liza]

Sharpen the saw. You're a strong spirit. I recognize the pain you allow yourself to absorb; you want to help the world and nothing dull will make a dent if we feel unworthy of our blessings because others are suffering ~ the intensity of your pain is weakness exiting. You have been born with an open heart and open hands and even if they seem empty - you're heart has always been full.

[arbitrary jane]

amazing poetry. ... every word finding home.

[kmartell]

I know how this is. You cannot but write this one poem. It isn't a "poem" but a rendering of our worlds consciousness like some light forced through you, a prisim, right now. This saddness is not poetic opinion but true feeling.

[Emily B]

there are no words

[An owl on the moon]

What a heavy sadness sings through this song... seasons mingling into scenes and scents of sunset days.. merging into the darkness of coming night... Just aching with each line... each tear falling... each painful heartbeat... It's as if a sacred dream of hope and life was splintered into fragments that can never quite be pieced together again... Maybe a new dream now waits to be born...

[bob, small b. aka invs]

pretty bleak. the only consolation is that Spring always seems to eventually show up for most of us. aging is a b***h. with it comes the reality of our own mortality and the knowledge that something precious has slipped past us. i don't know if it's valid to project that feeling onto the world as a whole. it might be. in any case, this was a well crafted, brilliant piece of writing.