Rhetorical
yeah ...
there was someone ...
a long time ago,
lifetimes, really ... eons,
and she burned me ...
oh, I don't mean in a bad way,
like betrayal,
I mean inside - DEEP inside,
like torch burns steel,
she seared herself into my being -
fired her name into my marrow,
with immutability and intent ...
like gods etch their ids on
the pillars of eternity,
she changed me ...
forever ...
by the simple act of dripping
my name from her lips,
she altered the course of my destiny,
and became the very breath of my soul ...
now, tell me -
what, in the name of heaven,
is a person to do with that??
my eyes have become muddled with the
endless fix of faces that have
danced in them in the
forty years since last I saw her,
yet everything I've done,
every triumph and tragedy,
every love and lie and loss,
has been tempered by the standard
that she set THEN, in her resolute sublimity ...
her fingertip melodies,
the agile ease of her limbs,
her exhuberance and wit
and command of my gaze and reason,
the shine of her regard …
there is not a single hour that
passes that does not SOMEhow wind
back with inexorable relativity to
the ideals that she placed within me,
yet her dazzled eyes have not
swum in mine for more
than four decades ...
I have not heard the lilt of her voice,
smelled the mystery of Je Reviens
upon her skin,
or felt the warm wonder of her
flesh beneath my hands,
for nearly five hundred full moons!
how, in all humility,
is a fool like me supposed to
bear such a yoke?
how do I let go of something that
will not let go of me?
how do I purge a poison that is
my very lifeblood??
what are we sad, silly, human creatures
supposed to do with the
numberless questions we pose,
that have, in all seriousness,
no chance of an answer?!?
yes ...
there WAS someone,
a long time ago ...
lifetimes ago, really ...
eons …
yeah.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, October 20, 2022
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