Response Poem:
"That Sound (Breathless Poetry Series)"
It takes more effort not to notice...
Above a rising meadow,
Monarch's wings float.
Bumbles bounce on slow-reacting necks sprouting,
serenading a spectrum of wild color
on the edge of towering pine.
Nature still calls me,
as early birds flee gray eyes,
flit from bough to branch to pale sky.
...I've noticed.
Your eyes beguile only yourself.
Sense acutely inhales
sweet bounty of aroma,
reward memory of true childhood
in visions of her tight rei(g)n
of a small hand lead
through joy she selflessly shared.
Memory fails her,
when you beguile yourself
without adding the sound of tossed leaves
on jittered, jutted branches swaying.
Each unique call invites the small ears,
recall those trails to streams Spring-surging
through wood to heart of true childhood.
If you'll notice...
If you can hear, smell,
when you can't taste, feel or see anymore,
up close, life you had, life she brought,
sent when she passed through
the grass, boughs and spiraling leaves,
above Monarchs, higher, a calling
no winging bird could ever hear.
Into a vapor,
clouds roaming in blue,
dying hue deep-bluing, eyes blur that vault
a child's outstretched, empty hand could never reach --
lifelong could never recapture, as a wandering soul's guide.
4.16.23
thoughts scatter ▼
recollections rambling, taming, roaming, collecting, loosen from an aging mind needing true spirit of childhood to guide a wild heart tempted on the periphery by the boundaries to run, smash, grab, run further, break each new divide, dimension and arriving horizon into the dark, darkening, because being contained doesn't serve the soul caged with a childhood prisoner.
Maybe I'm done. Maybe, I'm not. Shouldn't I decide whether to be a part of figments recalling reality now, life lived, potential of dreams then, dreams that could be, without snares and trap boxes that ensnare an animal none should dare domesticate.
It could have been simple...Brian. It could have been a tribute...they say. What is a heart but a thing that keeps beating like a turbine, sending blood...inside a monster, animal, intelligent or ignorant human? I know and can see everything I am, was and could be. Just not what will be because they held my arms life long and said no and I trusted, got lost and felt misdirected. I don't live on instinct when my compass has been messed with. When I'm up to it, I contemplate everything...every little detail, reconstruct and put myself on that map of life, trail from there and see if it leads somewhere. I never considered the sky until recently. I can't fly. I only see the ground. Eventually, we're all reminded to drop the sentimentality and remember humanity and not be possessed by it, the outcomes we can't prevent.
It's too late to make the most of it, a child monster who stomped and raged too much, left alone in the wilderness of life. There's plenty in words, failing memory and lonely experiences like an Emily to devour, scrawl about on lighted walls, to the day we're all ash and something small grows and follows along on the same arcs for capsules built with aim.
I'm no author, poet or writer but an idle mind with too much time to build, tear down, construct and ruin, a life that taught him shame, guilt, manipulation, pity and maudlin sympathy, but not (true) love...but to seek it as some reward that never comes like the promises of 'maybe, tomorrow'.
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