As long as I have started for myself this trend of sharing quotations, I thought I would share a poem with you guys. I’ve been writing on the blog in hints and whispers about how much the arts have meant in my life, and how much writing, in particular, has made me the person I am, but I have not shown you at all what I mean. Words have been everything to me, though I think I have said that before, and poetry has often been the only way I can struggle through myself toward truth. So it seems, with the semester officially done, that it’s high time I post a poem I wrote.
The Cacophony of Wonderment
What, in the dark, is all this cacophony of wonderment,
all this gathering-forth of majestic things, rushing out to meet the dawn,
to call like gulls upon the edges of the world, to memorize
in slow arcs and simple dives,
the contours of the thoughts spun out beneath the light and strung starwards?
What, after all, is all this legacy of dawn and daylight,
what mystery to us, who live beneath the hours of night,
transfixed, perhaps, by the starlight strong of afternoon, unknown,
what is any of it but questioning laid to sleep before the loam and atmosphere.
For we are cursed things, cared-for, wearied and riddled with the weight of
all the agonies we cast.
The storm is come, the wind a battered voice against the brightness of the things before,
and all the world is cloaked in cold and salt spray.
We will turn again to tunnels, deep dry places beneath the earth
where we are safe from the menace of the monstrous skies,
beneath the arching of the resting-places made our homes.
Your word choice is really vibrant and vivid. Your poem is a sensory experience! Such a different approach — I particularly enjoyed how you described the storm as “the menace from the monstrous skies”.
PS I’m no poet, but I would love to hang out with you sometime and exchange poetry, both original and favorites.
Thank you, Sharon! And hanging out and exchanging poems sounds fabulous.