An Emptiness Within
There is an emptiness within me
It is cold dark damp
Sounds echo
Ricochet back and forth
Sounds like the tapping
Of trapped miners
Below ground
Who will come to the rescue
Or will it be up to me
Scratch scratch scratch
I attempt to tunnel to the surface
There is an emptiness inside me
To enter is to enter
A large old church
In Northern New Mexico
Interior in shadows
Soon eyes adjust
Hear the murmur of voices
Prayers whispered
The air is chilled as in a tomb
I fall to my knees
Who will listen
Who will hear
.....She smiles down at me
There is an emptiness inside me
Like a large hole or pit
Will the scar grow over
Will I heal
Or forever will I be broken
Lost and lonely
When I think of you
And I think of you everyday
You are there for me
Though you have gone away
My mind’s eye sees you smile
You say it was just a game
For a little while
Still the boy I knew
A Peter Pan you were
I did not know how large
My love for you
I know now
My love is larger
Than the Aspen trees
Said to be the largest
Organism in the world
Their roots tangled together
As they reach for each other
Below ground
Love is like that you know
It is not just what you can see
Or feel
So much of it cannot be seen
Like roots beneath the soil
Reaching for the center of the earth
Hot molten
Love’s energy on fire
Light of the world
Light the emptiness inside me
12 comments:
the gentleness of the rhythm here works so well .. and I love the metaphor of the Aspen tree and the miner below.. wonderfully sad.
like roots beneath the soil... and we can see what grows of it....love the peter pan image.... a felt piece annell
p.s. was wondering if you want to highlight the stresses as gay suggests?
the allusions to the miner trapped under the earth took me right back to the rescue of those guys a few years ago...and it is effective in conveying the feeling early on....i can def feel the rhythm as i read this...i wonder too if it would be the same stresses and pauses that you would think as well...
beautiful, passionate, sad!! i loved reading this... there was a rhythm, a gentle music to this ...
In this poem you say very little with very many words.
In my opinion the hardest obstacles of my life have been the emptiness that comes in different colored ways..of lost of human and animal true friend too...but then the loss of even my soul..a laugh ..or even the memory of what a smile feels like true..but what i know..IS..wherever there is WiLL and a never give up on what now will bring now again..now when things change true..is..
there is always the now of now.. for tomorrow..
where something greater than ever...never experienced before..
can fill AND feel the darkest
coldest
spaces
of
existence
human
toiled
and
true!
empty
come
overflowing
FULL!..:)
This is sad. Amazing how a broken heart lingers. I like the imagery in this.
Excellent haunting romantic poetics, much enjoyed; the rhythms are extant, these beats are self-evident; but the MTB called for diagramming--& I, too, resisted. Some of us are just bad, mischievous only, no reflection on our poetics.
A beautiful elegy - repetitions make up a lot of the rhythms here - with anapests playing a large part but you accent hard syllables in a row a few times for effect..and it's a dramatic effect along with assonance and assimilation. The rhythms here are very American, not quite the drum beats that the southwest would impose, more the visual rhythms the Aspen trees unique from their root system above ground would suggest in that your rhythms are intrinsically tied to the subject. Very moving and beautiful poem!
Nice. This is a quiet poem--I hear it with a gentle rhythm. Even at the end when love's energy is on fire, it smolders with a hidden heat.
the words rose from sorrow's flame..the only happiness lies in the god-gifted fond memories of which even many are deprived...it's so hard...
Achingly sad poem, but the rhythm works beautifully.
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