The Tempering

As the leaves and ruddy ground are swept into the snows of early winter, hiding the rotten Fall beneath a canopy of a chill white blanket, I am left to contemplate the Realization of being passed over. Like a pebble, washed smooth in the lonely bed of this ice cold stream, wantonly lying down, anonymously, beside some stranger, unnoticed, beneath the waters torrent.

These ragged edges, chipped and broken in the spring wash, the rush of the Summers heat , the tumbling Fall, eased once more, resting beside a scorched hoard of stones, at the bottom of this harsh mountain. Chips and shards, chipped and scared, fallen, beneath its wintering shadow.

Nothing hides the emptiness, when the void has been hollowed in the remnants of your heart. Yet, the distraction of a warm soul, rocking beside you in that cold place, can seem as though, for a moment, it is filled again. A simulacrum of possibility, a chimeric happenstance of hope, easing the sombre moments, with the tipping of the touch in the eddy's of that wandering and aqueous memory.

Even in this place...one cannot hide. Be seamless, unseen, unheard amongst the denizen throng, this hearts soft beat tapping out the song of its longing. never to be known, never to be seen again.

How in all the world, does a poet discard his memories?

Draw back from the firmament, the ligation of his soul, and find a resting place with eyes half full, half closed, to the reflected glory of this hearts desire...The shimmering melody of that winter moon, the cruel cool glare of reflection, that peeks into his soul and shines the truth of the lost heat of that summers touch...Is there nowhere he can hide the sorrow and the shame?

If my heart were a flame, it would melt the steal with its rupture. Yet, it is but a watery grave, swallowed by the quenching bath of that steels hardening, Tempered, brittle now, close to shattering.

In time the edge will be sharpened, and the cut will be keener for the memory; but now, in this place, in this foreign land, this sea of eyes, it merely looks to hide beneath the cool waters of that winter stream, awaiting the spring melt, to wash it clean again.

© Richard Michael Parker 2010