.
Dark mist rising,
Drum beneath a keening sky –
This scent of loam, of leaf, of yearning,
Of memory’s wail
And piacular’s cry...
Evanescent expiation,
Yearning’s lusts abhorred.
Penitential rumination,
But no solace nor a respite
Nor understanding toward…
Revisit and addition to an old friend during this forced virus pause.
Torn this stony veil,
Watercolor world gone wrong.
What earth lies behind?
Beneath the sand cloak
Our hidden fears awaken.
Blind eyes see no claws.
In the country of the blind,
Where men refuse the seen,
Where oblivion reigns
and denial rules most proud.
Where seers prate and preen
the falsehoods of the day.
In all the darkened corners
One-eyed beggars see the light.
We bloom between rocks,
Rooted between pain and loss.
Clefts allot our hopes.
Trilliums push up in my yard,
Spring has coaxed them out.
No need to distance,
No virus to hinder.
Just the pull of an ancient call,
The warmth of a thawing world,
And a promise for the future.
And so the COVID storm, this sudden surge of unexpected wave-born pain. Uncertainty fences challenge – thrust, feint…and parry.
With little quarter given amidst our grim despair,
Worry parries hope as need harries our bottomless loss.
And all the while it rains down numbers, an exponential torrent,
All lightning figures that fork and branch
Illuminating nothing.
