Somewhere in my stomach is a string.
It unwinds slowly with serpentine grace,
Pulling thin as the years lengthen
Until it surrenders to invisibility
Countless miles behind me.
Some days it is pulled taught
Until it is painful,
My history so prominent in my mind
That it's all I can do not to dive down into myself
And inhabit the past, to hide from the present.
It's always been worst on summer evenings,
Where violet skies and golden light
And deep silence force me backwards
All the way to the begining,
To an August afternoon so far gone
As to be unreachable.
And now I remember the winter mornings,
Air stinging my skin, sharp
As a paper cut,
The paths traced on innumerable mornings overlaying each other
In a single mass,
Tangled with the ghosts of childhood expectation,
So long abandoned now.
So many things make me miss what was.
The cry of gulls, morning light through net curtains,
Green leaves, vanilla ice cream,
Autumn mists, the smell of woodsmoke,
The sound of rain on a tent roof.
So many things tug on this string.
And now, days from my birthday,
It is pulled tighter than ever before,
Nostalgia and fear become bedfellows,
As I stand on the last ledge of childhood,
One step from the edge.
YOU ARE READING
A Song To The Dawn
PoesiaJust a few poems. ... Until he stood at its highest peak, Without hesitation he leapt And flew as the sparrow does, Coasting on invisible winds and Delicate wings, in ups and downs, Like waves And the water crashed upon the shore, Pebbles rolling...
