What is it Like
to have given everything away
What is it Like?
What is it like to be alone? To fall into the abyss where voices do not speak? What is it like to have given everything away? In the wrong way? What is it like to love no one? To live in a house shared only by servants? What is it like? It is like this. You are alone beneath a cold moon, you cannot speak, the bitter night has pierced your clothes and when you sleep, your body stirs with a chill wind which hour after hour and against your will, refuses to stop. In the cold morning you will be open to one comfort only. The barely conceived surprise of being shaken awake. --from the collection River Flow: New & Selected Poems, originally published in Where Many Rivers Meet
Heartbreaking. Evokes the desire to reach out and place a hand against the glass wall of another’s fortress of solitude.
Oh gods this hits the bell today! Shaken awake with the thought
‘I’m still here and I have it all to feel and face and fall through 🤦♀️.’
Sometimes rumination can resound so badly in my sleep-starved, teeming brain, I have to intercede, to manipulate my dream… thus, suddenly I’m French, my clothes grand, Baroque style with my hair covered by a high white wig…. I’m standing in an open carriage, Wolf-hound by my side and I’m heading for Gallow’s Hill, just far enough away from the castle so the ladies don’t wince -
“Any last words…” he barks
“The only word I have is YES” and with that I lie down, arms wide clutching handfuls of Daisy-clad grass, I turn my head to the side and invite the axe’s blade - but not before telling my executioner that he must promise to ‘unceremoniously boot the offensive vessel into the sea’!!
Mad and yet healing….
That’s what it is like… 😵💫
Love the closeness to the edge of this poem DW, great that you can stand close to the abyss and whisper back…