Land that fathered me, land that mothered me
I give myself unto thee once more.
Here I am prostrate, denuded,
Suppliant on your shore.
Tumbled in briny waters, tangled in wild
Things that dragged me down down
Down toward the light that glows from some place so dark and enchanting.
Utterly impenetrable,
Then suddenly irrevocable.
It was but an idea, an ideal
Choked and drowned and spit high to the heavens,
Cast away from bones and sinews and other such particular things:
Intolerable things, I once thought… so telluric, so sensible.
Why so unbearably sensible?
But I am here now, stripped raw of ideals,
Here to lay myself once more under your groves.
But are these olive trees a growing sanctuary? A replenishing asylum?
Could this be but my silent Gethsemane?
Yet this wind, this owl, this cicada: they pierce a thought…
Are they my chorus, my requiem, or my lullaby?
Their calls hold the silence at bay, their vibrations soar above, sink to earth.
Do you hear me amidst the din?
The spirit too is weak…. weaker than flesh.
The spirit too must err and stumble upon the polished pebbles it dared to skip — slimy
speculative things that they are.
So come closer now and heed not the call of vigil,
Suffer no penance for the broken words at your feet,
For letters spilled between your toes, for utterances incomplete.
The spirit too is weak, the spirit too is weak.
So let them fall!
Let them fall: the mournful shards of promises that didn’t keep.
You are with me here in the dawn, in soft arms once more,
Borne by the waves, born again on this shore.
Take from my fingers this convalescence,
Be it in jest, in silence, in acquiescence.
Let go of this axle directing the spinning
And breath each rising sun ‘till the spirit is willing.
…But the spirit, the spirit…is weaker than flesh…
Weaker than flesh —
Do you hear me amidst the din?
make sure you also check out Eme’s illustration of poem 63 here.