Thursday, September 22, 2005

We, who are in silence, having forgotten the song…

There is so much,
so many of these
hymns left over from
other days,

so many yellowed
pages, rolled at the
edge and smudged
from generations
of moist hands,

but the one song
that doesn’t come
complete, the
mysterious one
with the missing
fifth verse—

that is the one we
pine to call out,
our voices not
so well cultured
as they once were,
our tones moving
just outside the
key,

but still, there would
be a marvel in it,
something better
than the well-produced
known,

for these canticles would
be sacred unto us,
gold brought back
from places further than
sunken ships,

and the spin of those
long lost words would
be on everything,
all the world’s axis
flung differently down
paths previously unflown
in space,

if only for those lost words
of the nameless singer,
that single missing
page to an otherwise
exhaustive treatment
of the age…

And ignoring those
chiding voices of our
mothers, now long unknown
and unheard-of, we
pick at the scabs of
our generational wounds,
we pull at the dropped
stitch in the fabric
of things that are
otherwise good,

for all the stanzas and
verses seem as nothing
if the single phrase we
wish to hear most is
forever mute and
forgotten.

6 comments:

Bill said...

"for all the stanzas and
verses seem as nothing
if the single phrase we
wish to hear most is
forever mute and
forgotten."

This last stanza, left me pondering just that... things sought, not reached... now forever gone, unreachable, nearly forgotten.

So much slips past, then nags us from behind... That still in front of us though, for me, fortunately has the stronger pull, most of the time.

Thanks for this one bro.

Mushster said...

"for all the stanzas and
verses seem as nothing
if the single phrase we
wish to hear most is
forever mute and
forgotten"

Yes, yes, yes

Patrick M. Tracy said...

Ken,

I know of no better way to cope with the world than to live each day as well as you can manage, trying not to focus on what has gone wrong. Still, there are losses and disappointments that don't fade, that stick to the soft tissues inside. We can only hope that these things are like sand to an oyster--and will bring forth something beautiful from hard times. Thanks for writing in. Your comments are always wise and well stated.

Bill,

Glad I could hit the nail squarely with this one. I feel that we all exist in a flux between what was, what is, and what we wish could be. It's easy to concentrate on what we haven't done, what we don't have, but those thoughts become a veil that hides all that we do have, all we have done. Should we be blind or should we train ourselves to look at all of these things and be unmoved? A question I cannot answer...

Mush,

Glad to hear from you! How was your trip? I'm excited to hear all about it.

Bill said...

Firehawk - "I feel that we all exist in a flux between what was, what is, and what we wish could be."

You're right, we live, in 'what is'. However, our minds (well mine anyway) seem to endlessly cycle from 'what was' to 'what could be'... hence the challenge in living in the 'moment', for me anyway.

Bill said...

Oh... and as for being blind. No, I don't think so, the past reveals to us much of who we were, and are... the future what we hope to be... both important I think. The answer is to not let them become that veil you speak of... instead of clouding our vision, to have them clarify it.

Mushster said...

It was more than I expected Firehawk. Now I'm trying to recover from the jetlag lol.

Across Inconstant Breath

Would that this skin this frail armor atop the husk of slow departure -  Would that it held against the teeth  of night's maw a...