ConstantA Poem by Marie AnzaloneI. These we take for granted: seasonal variation, a sense of constant, the everlasting solidity of earth, underfoot; we may only see ahead a short ways but that it will always be enough to keep moving forward.
Fifteen years I followed a call, a direction applied to my days without explanation, without a compass, landscapes for which mapmakers decided not to share their wisdom.
How do we know we have found That which was sought? We stop asking it if it is the correct thing, and instead seek its correctness in everything else. Application of accrued observation.
II. We flow through lives like water, like blood, like oil. Few traces remain of what we thought things might turn out like. We call things constant,
forgetting that the action of water erodes even mountains, over time. Geologists will tell you, nothing is ever lost. Every grain of sand we rub from our fingers, a larger story.
The trick they say is learning: the secrets of sand. Telling the best story. If I could tell the story sweetly enough, could you hear it? Would you feel its truth, and stay?
III. I want to undress you forever: unbutton every fear, unzip each desire; strip you of all burdens; slowly, each act an unveiling, a desire to see you naked, to draw every
scar to my mouth, to know the story of every small piece. To worship each perfect imperfection, to feel the water as it surges through you. I make you a constant. All this time: it is the correctness of you I have sought in every sunset, every song, every poem; every arching grandness of every landscape. Your presence discovered in infinite grains of sand.
IV. If a season could extend a lifetime, we would call that, our constant. We would say that odds were defeated, that roses bloomed in winter, that we saw spring in every act of generosity.
We would say that fear dissolved in water, we would say that blood nourished from within, we would say that the oil was only ever of the type to penetrate and nurture the skin.
We could reach and hold every one of these things, if only we learned that fear has no place in the infinite. That doubt itself is a constant, the earth shifts. Its movement overwhelms us.
and we move forward, we let it overwhelm for its time, and then if we have any courage, we do the thing anyway. © 2015 Marie AnzaloneFeatured Review
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Added on August 22, 2015Last Updated on August 22, 2015 AuthorMarie AnzaloneXecaracoj, Quetzaltenango, GuatemalaAboutBilingual (English and Spanish) poet, essayist, novelist, grant writer, editor, and technical writer working in Central America. "A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to ta.. more..Writing
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