Thursday, June 03, 2010

Tame the Dust

I am the revivified tissues
the strengthened flesh
the hardened bone, the
new skin around this
old chassis brought back
from the darkened
barns of rusted doom

I am not healed of all
the ills of the past
nor purified of the
poisons of long gone
days, but new fuel
cooks the taint of
the old slowly down,
slowly down into
the weedy lower
bowels of this
machine, and roads
long forsaken
once more beckon
from the blue
of late spring
twilight

I have reached the
turning places on the
odometer twice now,
once broken in and
twice nearly broken
but I am not gone,
not decimated by
the rough sand of
the track to this
parking lot where
I now idle

There is one fewer
in the caravan now
and we are moving again
moving across the
unknown meridians
and into lands where
something green may
grow, where the rains
will tame the dust.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh yes! Think that this one says it all. Very rewarding to see you revving up your gears. Will be looking forward to seeing more from you. m

Anonymous said...

Hi Patrick,

Apparently the writer’s workshop stirred a few embers in you – and it’s good to see too.

Grief takes many forms, over many months and years. There is something quietly heroic in the process. You well describe the complex journey of picking up what remains, dusting off, looking forward, and at the same time not forgetting. Although Darwin would have it no other way, that doesn’t diminish the poetry. Thanks for sharing this work,

Swiftboat

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