The Edge
"..the lingering illness/Is over at last—
And the fever called 'Living'.."
~ Edgar Allan Poe
After the ritual
ten a.m. tea in the pottery cup
cut with the tree of life
I stand on the dark sharp edge
of my time
where green shoots have rioted
hardened and yellowed
where baskets of rain
washed their soft-
swishing hands
long ago, willow braids undone
to meet dissolution running.
Still
I stand on the edge
without reason or net.
Love has screamed and run off
wherever she goes
when years brittle the body to
an unpurposed flesh-house, condemned
and groaning in the torrent of night.
Even your fragrance has rubbed
from my skin
in scales sloughed off
by the fever dying within.
The witchwind breaks boughs,
its wild rough hand reaching
but like yours I can't take it
without a fall.
I only stand on the edge
while words drop like daggers
and darkness
kisses my back.
May 2023
3 comments:
There are angels to wrestle badly for all of us, so many of different intent and bruisinga for every life. I think it's the poem's task is to greet each of them as we are hurled and pinned once again. My present angel makes it so hard to say anything decent any more, but that is not this dilemma. A feral hold for the speaker here, presented as Another Damn Day, with "the dark sharp edge / of my time" for vantage and love's ghost for company. Singing thus is what the poem must do and does; even if failure what blossoms in the witchwind. Still a love song, start to finish. Sorry readers are spare of this deserving work. We'll see about the forum. It's early.
OK. That is an all-time great last line. Take a bow.
The edge sounds like a pretty dreadful place to be, my friend. I especially liked the line about not being able to take either's hand without a fall.
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