All my creative pursuits.
I idly sit and watch from my throne of inertia
While the bridges I so carefully built
Are thoroughly and systematically destroyed
And with them, the pathways are forever cut off,
Leaving one side of the shore isolated from the other
Except for the occasional stone you throw
Which lands harmlessly at my feet
It’s as if the tectonic plates have shifted beneath us
And earth itself has put me beyond your reach
Header image via Pinterest
Alan Seeger was born in New York City on June 22, 1888. After joining the French Foreign Legion in 1914, Seeger was killed in action in northern France on July 4, 1916.
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.
God knows ‘twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear…
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.
Speaking in hushed tones,
About things no one cares about.
Platitudes and cliches:
“There, there, by and by”
Covering up the ugliness,
With half truths and exaggeration.
Rewriting history, erasing memory…
“Be at peace, peace be with you”
Droning voices and incense,
The rituals and traditions,
Offer the bereaved no comfort.
“Dona eis requiem. Amen”
In a box lined with silk,
And into a whitewashed grave,
We commit our “beloved”
For whom we gather here together.
But whose rottenness is more,
Than decomposing flesh,
It runs completely to the bones.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
Header Image: detail form Garden of Earthly Delights: Hieronymus Bosch; The Gates of Hell
A poem for Tanya…
Meg Sorick, Author/Artist 