Friday, 19 August 2016

The overhaul

Such a gentle and deceptive doing,
such a smiling assault: the world
is such a dangerous place
and your sweet words describe its violence
like a claw's caress, the downy residue
of some recent kill adhering to the talon,
tickling us as it softly brushes
against our skin as we are scarred. 

The Moon bends
the low crescent bow of her back against us
and draws pure light from her quiver;
an ecliptic clock winds up an equinox;
and the sky puffs full with stars
that, by one reckoning of time,
are (very) slow motion sparks
struck by that single hammer blow
whose attenuated impact reverberates
through all your nuanced observations:
the beaks and talons nature crafts
to fulfil purposes beyond the ken
of the creatures She asks carry them,
to convey these implements of evolution
to their target; the betrayal coiled
in every genetic helix;
the cruelties we are condemned
to commit against ourselves;

and you remind us, Kathleen, that beauty
is a hammer blow in slow motion,
a hammer blow on pause,
and we can only catch our breath
between its nauseating chimes,

and after every betrayal
and inevitable disappointment,
once we emerge altered
by unsought struggles, even once
all we first thought we fought for
is revealed as a lie and we collapse
gelded by the knowledge of our failures
we can still rededicate ourselves
and survive in the tales
we tell our heart's
around their hidden campfires, tales

of who we once were long ago.

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