Despair — A Poem
©By Vijaya Sundaram
March 21, 2013
All this writing is a flailing
All this talking is a failing
All these songs are a wailing
All these stories are a hailing
Of ice onto a desert, frozen
By sun and burned by snow.
You know that, don’t you?
A flailing and a failing
Because the silence waits.
Brooding and unrelenting
Endless and frightful,
The dark and angry silence
Waits.
Jealous of those who speak,
Greedy to suck our sounds,
Enraged by us,
Ready for us,
Eternal and malign,
Silence awaits our sound.
For it will all be swallowed
By the gaping chasm
Yawning like a grin
In the skull of Death,
A chasm that widens
And lies at the very end of
The trail of my words,
And the wail of yours.
Our out-pouring of the chatter
Which approximates thought,
Words, words, words:
Weak reflectors of the
Unfathomable,
Beaming into the blackness
Between our minds,
Create false comfort,
For in our waking sleep,
Creeps in the beast.
All words lead to …
All roads lead to …
All songs lead to …
All action leads to …
So, I know this, don’t I?
And you know this, don’t you?
And yet, I struggle and flail
Throw my songs, my words out,
Hoping some of them will flutter
Onto a Waiting Cliff, bleached
By a starving sun,
Weak but pulsing still.
And you struggle and flail,
Toss out cry after cry,
Song after song,
Story after story,
Hoping they will be
Miraculously delivered
To a faraway shore.
Perhaps a Someone will see
And hear, listen and watch.
See mine struggling,
Loosen their terrified hold,
And set them free.
Perhaps another Someone will see
Your castaways on the faraway shore
Revive them, give them succor.
And they too will be free,
Eternals, all.
And perhaps, mine will flutter
Into a sky that promises
Something unknown,
Unknowable, but bright.
And perhaps, they will call
Into the widening sphere
Hoping to find their mates,
And roost somewhere,
Forever.
And perhaps yours will traipse
Into another sphere and bask
In the light of Imagination,
Ready to be reborn
In another form.
I can only dream of this,
I can only give shape to this
In those very words
Which might tumble,
Echoing eerily
Into that yawning chasm.
For, to think otherwise,
Is to die, not by degrees,
As we all do, and must,
But right here, right
Now.
– And that would never do!
And thus, the false dawn brightens
Our gasping, choking day.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Feeling very, very dark today.)