Seaweed
©May 1st, 2017
ByVijaya Sundaram
When everything’s been said.
And yet, I haven’t said it all.
Should I speak?
And why?
What need is there?
Surely it is silence I crave.
All this noise, a railing
Against encroaching night,
Drives a stake into my eyes.
Eyes closed at night,
I wonder and wonder.
Lines from Prez’s “Lady Be Good” solo
Run around like rats in a maze
Within my forlorn cranium,
Where tangled thoughts,
And sudden sorrows
Float like detached balloons.
Recycled lines from songs
Pound against my dovetail joints,
So that the sutures threaten
To come undone.
If I speak, it is to reveal
And yet, I wish to stay secret
A decorator crab, seen and unseen.
Covering its shell with seaweed and seaglass,
Hiding within its little garden,
Hoping not to be noticed,
And yet, decorating away.
The pull and push
The yearning and repulsion
The silence and the speech,
Keep me tied to this post.
Untie me, let me go free,
And when I let go,
I shall walk on the waves,
Then sink below, and I shall
Bury me in sand under the sea
So I will hear the heaving of the waves
The endless sigh, its rise and fall,
And the comings and goings
Of silent, secret creatures,
And be glad of the company.
There, the music will filter
Through my ears, and escape,
Like strands of seaweed,
Floating under a full moon
With shimmering algae.
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