04-11-2016, 05:23 AM
This is not a poem
You remember the petals
that led to your marriage bed,
how they now glisten
like so many fallen tears.
You collect each one
till they overflow through
your fingers in a rush,
like from a deep spring
gushing to finally settle,
into what is now predictable
brackish immobility
and the gauzy uncertainty
of dark water. So you cast
your line, and ripples circle
till all is a tangle with nothing
surfacing. They circle,
and swirl, the water empties,
is empty, was always empty.
And this too is not a poem.
It is what we remember
when the world ends.
You remember the petals
that led to your marriage bed,
how they now glisten
like so many fallen tears.
You collect each one
till they overflow through
your fingers in a rush,
like from a deep spring
gushing to finally settle,
into what is now predictable
brackish immobility
and the gauzy uncertainty
of dark water. So you cast
your line, and ripples circle
till all is a tangle with nothing
surfacing. They circle,
and swirl, the water empties,
is empty, was always empty.
And this too is not a poem.
It is what we remember
when the world ends.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson