“Maybe when
the world seems to be ending, it needs poets.”
-Mohammad Hanif’-
Poetry reveals what lies
deep in our souls, our spirits,
who we are, our selves laid bare,
and perhaps the fear of discovery,
the anxiety, the despair of knowing,
blocks our own understanding
of the words on the page,
the rhymes and the rhythms,
the metaphors we fail to see,
the poetry that is us.
Overseas, a child dies,
her blue bear stuffed and cast
asunder,
collateral damage in a useless war
of words and weapons;
and here, too, a child dies,
more slowly over time,
collaterally,
while the fat get fatter, the rich,
richer,
her dreams abandoned, lost in
poverty and ignorance -
the children dream perhaps of hope,
of love, perhaps
of peace.
The chickadee and nuthatch, the
finch
and sparrow have survived the
winter months’
cold and snow and gusty winds
buffeting them
flittering between branch and
feeder, a quick seed
and returning, or leisurely dining
on the railing
outside my window on a warm winter
day,
surviving as did we, trapped as we
were inside ourselves,
wrapped in the garb of winter cold
and darkness
clutched tight about us, hats
pulled low, and scarved;
but today, spring crept in, the
lion of winter settling down
awaiting the lamb, his roar but a
purr amidst the melting
snow and ice of rising degrees,
raising, too, our hopes
for change, rebirth and renewal,
daffodils and irises sprouting,
the transient birds stopping by,
and the birds of summer
returning, old friends gone south,
migrating, coming home.
Out quietly walking, deep
in thought, and all sound ceases,
even the music of the wind blowing,
your own breathing in and out,
the footfalls you leave on the
gravel path,
-- not a sound,
not a noise,
only silence, a
stillness;
keep listening, listening for the
soft voice
whispering inside you, barely recognized,
the sound of yourself welling up,
asking to be heard, that still
small voice
you first heard in the darkness
of the womb, grown silent in
leaving,
pushing you into the light, into
the noise
and the confusion, the chaos called
living,
growing up, childhood into adulthood
and old age,
life drowning out that silenced
voice left behind,
that same small voice in the darkness
calling you now,
to remember, to recall your own
beginnings,
your own past, the journeys you
were meant to take,
discovering, again, who you are.
