V E R S E ❦ I M A G E

Star Chickweed

.     .     .     .     .

OF SORROWS AND ACQUAINTED WITH

Second Day
The voices are almost quiet here.
Like sleep, but without the need
to awaken. An old man who can’t summon up
an image of the hour he’s just spent, is he
a captive of his past or freed
to live in the moment? And a young man
who can’t imagine his next hour?

The voices are almost quiet here.
I add my own voice to that thrum,
a single indeterminate bee
in a distant honey tree. Oneness.
Distance. Warm, golden, sweet,
and who can remember the stings?
Have you abandoned me
or is emptiness my fulness?

The voices are almost quiet here.
How is it done? Are stones and darkness
enough to shut them out? When a man denies
the need for food because he desires
never again to feel hunger, when he breaks
the knife because it has cut him,
when he closes his eyes
because he fears darkness, then

the voices are almost quiet. Here
there is no need to discover
my voice. Oneness, or nothingness?
A mother draws her newborn son
to her breast, her own blood still warm
on his face. The pain, she doesn’t forget it,
but her heart is all thanks. The voices
are almost quiet here. But only almost.

.     .     .     .     .

by Bill Griffin

Day One posted April 6, 2012

Day Three posted April 8, 2012

Originally published in Wild Goose Poetry Review

.     .     .     .     .