Walking The Paper Plank
In the wildest place,
my mouth stopped with stars,
I came to the end of words;
the parched mint, bitter
paper plank
where I lost my balance,
on one foot teetering
along that roadway where gold-
flashing fireflies stand effortlessly
on air
to send their fragile signal
out,
every night a nocturne
of one less
til I and the last firefly
danced alone
in the wildest place
sending our last ignition
out
to find our kind
or else fall quiet
and one
with the wild that
will neither be spelled
nor known.
June 2023
a late poem on the Wild Thing Challenge, posted for Open Link
7 comments:
Beautiful. The closing stanza is just perfect. Love the idea of the poet and the firefly dancing alone in the wildest place.
But...light is energy and wiser souls than I have determined that energy cannot be destroyed, it only changes form. All that to say, the light you have, that translates as the brilliance of your poems and friendship could never reach an end. I refuse to believe it.
I love the sense of writing poems as walking a paper plank with big fish jaws spread below. The accidental nature of wilderness is most succinct here when that step falters and fireflies flame on. Is this the abyss, or backyard Oz? "Every night a nocturne / of one less / til I and the last firefly / danced alone." Ahem and amen. I wonder if the wild will shout Finally! when my words are done and I am compost for critters, composing the poem I always meant to. Well worth the long brew for a charm like this, thanks Hedge.
The sense of reverence that runs throughout the poem holds a foundation for the wonder and awe that are deftly layered in as we walk through the mystery that bring us to an end and a beginning. The last flicker of light, the birth of the gift of our gone-ness into that wild which cannot be spelled nor known. Such depth in this close.Oh my.
Till I and the last firefly danced alone... the kind of line I wish I had written.. beautiful... words and imagery.
The poem carries a certain hopeful melancholy with it, While reading, I was reminded of the Yin-Yang symbol, but not so much about the balance, and more so about imagining and feeling like one is walking the specific line that divides the two, reaching the end, then walking it again - somehow not being persuaded to go either way. I absolutely loved these lines : "danced alone
in the wildest place
sending our last ignition
out
to find our kind"
I love walking the paper plank. What a great image.
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