An Offering

Since I'm still having a fairly prolonged bout of writer's block, I'm rewriting an older unpublished post. Remember back in February when I was so pleased about finally writing a poem after a several-year hiatus? (I actually wrote two, but that's hardly the point) Well, here it is at last--I've decided to share it after all. I’ve tweaked it a bit since its first inception, and I’m sure I’ll continue to edit, but please enjoy my first foray back into the short verse world of words. Hmmmm, that last phrase sounded nice, too...

I know I said this before, but I think it's really worth emphasizing--it's hard for me to publicize my writing. Sure, I write on this public blog all the time, but poetry is another matter. It's so much more intensely personal, and I can't explain precisely why. After all, this poem isn't about me in any way. But I suppose it is about me in the way that poetry reflects the deepest and most personal core of my soul; the things that make me who I am. It's like peeling open my ribcage and showing you what's inside--a bit uncomfortable.

With that said, the other poem I posted back in February seemed to cure me of my stage fright--nothing untoward happened as a result; the world continued to zoom around the sun the same old way it has for millennia; no lambs laid down with lions, and nobody wrote me any hate mail. I think I'm okay. So, enough preamble (it's way longer than the poem!), here it is:

Summer

August days are neverending--
the unyeilding phalanx of noon
marches its way across the entire day,
claiming everything in its path.
endless afternoons paint blinding yellows
across landscapes
bleaching houses to bone.
Only when the sun has recalled its army
can we lift our chests to draw full breaths.
Flattened cities rise again
as Autumn's children filter lightly
through the streets,
preceded by the thousand bells
of their bronze and silver laughter.

2-11-09

Apologies to my friend Summer, who is neither phalanx-like nor oppressive. She’s quite the opposite--probably named after the positive qualities that most people associate with the season: carefree days, warm rays of sunshine and lilting waves, a lightness of being.

I think I like this poem, but I'm not sure yet. What matters most to me is that it felt really good to write it. I'm satisfied with that.