| Becoming Emily |
Bethl
|
It is said that a stone may only go | 1 |
As far as you can throw it and | 2 |
That life may be as large as you come | 3 |
To know it. And so it is | 4 |
For me. | 5 |
| |
From the vast and hollow spaces of | 6 |
My empty home, I have learned | 7 |
To live life from the inside, looking out. | 8 |
I’ve explored the inner verticals, the | 9 |
Imploding horizontals, wandered through | 10 |
Untraveled corridors and the once | 11 |
Forbidden passages, roamed freely over | 12 |
Full, uncharted landscapes and the | 13 |
Jagged, rich, interior of my captive | 14 |
Human roadmap. | 15 |
| |
And in hushed, consoling beauty | 16 |
Of morning’s quiet hum, I lift my | 17 |
Face to no one but the memory of a | 18 |
Thousand rising suns. A sweet and | 19 |
Seasoned symphony of crickets guides | 20 |
My crooked feet, while fleeing families | 21 |
Of trees extend their nimble arms | 22 |
Like midnight phantoms. The quixotic | 23 |
Chorus of their colored leaves sets me | 24 |
Drifting, their random entries and long | 25 |
Departures are never mentioned, hardly spoken. | 26 |
| |
But in the black and seamless brilliance | 27 |
Of evenings heated sky, I look up | 28 |
And stars become spaceships and | 29 |
Spaceships turn to moons, and my | 30 |
Dreams are like voyagers or | 31 |
Twilight journeymen, collecting | 32 |
Pieces of the day and storing them | 33 |
Like missing jewels. | 34 |
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And I yearn for other times when | 35 |
Choices were so few that minds dressed | 36 |
Up like stoics, when Walden Ponds | 37 |
And self-reliance were not simply | 38 |
Useless parts of metaphorical debates. | 39 |
I’d keep myself content in the company | 40 |
Of Emerson, seek solace in the pines | 41 |
With, the help of my Thoreau. It is | 42 |
Here where I see Emily, in the sternness | 43 |
Of New England, spinning out her years | 44 |
In golden threads of verse. | 45 |
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Yet how can I presume my reluctant | 46 |
Transformation to a poet I don’t | 47 |
Know and cannot come soon to fathom, | 48 |
For the darkness howling in my eyes | 49 |
Has left her work in shadows. I | 50 |
Only can imagine that words became the | 51 |
Canvas with which our unprotected souls | 52 |
Sought temporary cover. For like unrequited Emily, | 53 |
Solitude’s my constant mistress, and though | 54 |
I try to leave, it seduces me in time. | 55 |
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So, when I think of her, trapped inside | 56 |
Her moments, placing pain and | 57 |
Sorrow within her rueful scripture, | 58 |
I pray for my transcendence from the | 59 |
Lonely vault of silence, as I | 60 |
Design a living history within my | 61 |
Pinup world. | 62 |
| |
Silhouettes of friends dance across | 63 |
Cold windows, a mother’s silky hand | 64 |
Smooths my restless sheets. Sofas | 65 |
Rise and fall to the vanished breath | 66 |
Of fathers, dressers empty and | 67 |
Unfold old fragile faded loves. | 68 |
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Each object heals and dazzles | 69 |
With the vigilance of memory, | 70 |
Until the satin hush that was drowning | 71 |
Me in whispers has renovated time | 72 |
In heroic fabrications, decorated meaning | 73 |
With rekindled, sacred wisdom, | 74 |
Freeing Emily’s spirit from | 75 |
Its unholy chain of loss. | 76 |
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