Wednesday, 16 November 2011

Poem: Blue and pining




The March wind scours this labyrinth.
Behind it, a few pine trees
sway rigidly against the blue sky.

Often when you walk a labyrinth, someone else is there with you,
but on this one,  I am by myself.
Well, not completely so:
For I follow rows of stones  – smooth and hard like the tops of skulls –
I take them for markers of the dead –
one dead soul after another and after another
making a path of grief.

Between the stones, the path is lined with wood chips
slowly rotting: springy but still stiff with cold.
It’s like walking on frosted flakes.
Here and there, they have blown over the stones.
Hands jammed into my pockets against the cold,
I stop to uncover the rocks with the toe of my shoe,
stubbing until  the shiny surfaces re-appear.

I pause too at the tight constricting corners – this labyrinth is narrower than others.
The long sweeping arcs send me to the centre then away, as usual,
but, at the centre, where you expect the rose,
there is a just a circle,
empty
save for a big rock
slightly off-centre –
a red heart-shaped rock, ventricles down,
unmoving, solid and dead.

So is this the heart of the matter?
Is this a sacred heart?
Will the stones cry out?
Is there no shudder but the wind?

Six months have now gone by since my life’s heart stopped.
I follow grief’s labyrinth,
hoping every day  
that I have reached the centre and can return,
leaving my  cold stone heart behind once and for all.

But I look back and, of course, am turned
to a pillar of salt – too many tears.

L. Harris April 10, 2011

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