The Naming of Things

'The Naming of Things'

How do I say; 'I love you'?
How in the naming of things does the motion begin?
the swelling tide, this great ocean,
that fills my heart so full, I drown a little every day inside.

The day you left, and the naming of things receded.
Half names, in a half lit world, half a sea away,
swirling within this maelstroms grief and doubt,
Oh god!, I tried to speak,
I tried to speak them, but only half words came out,
half sounds, half formed,
receding into a silence again, still born.
Half of me, half a world away, half night, half day.

Where does this come from? This, tremor within?
These words, silent, half heard,
night waves smashed upon this reef,
cast into a rolling sea,
filled with an endless grief,
toiling, twisting, crashing into one another,
until all that is left of them, all that is left,
in this seething mass of foaming heartache,
is a shoddy flotsam bursting upon the surface of things,
fractured remnants,
fragments of craft washed upon this shore,
never to speak, never to sail, never, nevermore.

It is the silence, that gnaws upon the bones of discontent,
eating into the marrow of self worth,
until all that is left is a cracked empty shell,
and the hollow of brittle bones,
stirring in the cauldron of this vacuous stillbirth.

There comes a moment in every life,
the hammer fall of silence,
that cracks the loving egg,
spilling the yolk into a briny sea.
There comes a moment,
when you either live, tied, or die, free.
There comes a moment, when you know,
these ragged ends will never be whole,
broken shards forever shattered,
never to mend, empty and hollow,
holding nothing but the sea that they swallow.

There comes a moment,
foul in that tempests grip,
awash in a howling gale,
remorselessly torn in a heartless rip,
when that leeching sea begins to pull you down,
that you either close your heart, or you drown.

There comes a moment when you know, just know,
if you go under again, you will never resurface,
torn between the drowning heart and the loveless.

There comes a moment, when all things must be named.

How do I say; 'I love you'?
except in the naming of things,
the naming of things that I love,
for it is you that I love, and in loving you,
name you, my love.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011



Artwork: 'La Jeune Martyre' - Paul Delaroche