A man always falls back
on what he knows best in a crisis
What happens when the crisis is all he knows?
A fresh Hell doubled, black and molten
washed away my feeble claims to knowledge
This time there was warning of sorts
raven morning shattered by phone calls
to wake the mummies we had become
suffocating sleepwalk into our clothes
through a wormhole into actinic pain
A swallows' breath of time we believed
this golden sun might attain perfect fusion
So wrong, its core burned out, air frozen,
I awoke staggering on a trail of tears
falling back into a box containing the sun
~In memoriam of him, half of my first light
August 8, 2012
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The line in bold is from Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner. It makes one wonder what do we really know best?
08 August 2012
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Not just a technically skilled piece of poetry, but an astonishing moment captured. Many of us have been there, IG.
ReplyDeleteMay you always remember the man you commemorate in this poem, and may he rest, finally, in peace.