Poem: New Death

 

New Death

 

in some struggle of a second

i called out, more than loud,

less than a penitent scream.

i listened to the echoes of myself fade,

embers of some thinker hollowed,

a sculptor who became a replica,

etched on an ironic tomb.

 

it was a plot of dizzy asters,

white and purple needle sprays,

and i had just remembered

our ‘walks’ in places where

dust had suckled our bare toes,

sashes of ravens in sierra blue,

cliffs whiskery with sagebrush.

 

i’d come to the realization

your presence was not assured.

a new sort of death which

didn’t hurt as much as the first,

my limitation, not yours,

how i argued into the wind,

as if it knew how to find you.

 

such lovely sorcery

had been our sustenance

ever since it all began,

how we found each other with no explanation

from anyone else who had tried,

only the echo chamber of the fearful

who chipped away at marvel and delight.

 

sheep in the valley, wings in the sky,

only the meander of the foothills

bared pleasures fretless and attainable.

and so it was, you and i,

we fell together, over and over,

far above the jaws of generic cruelty,

faltering in our height.

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