Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Little Room

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."

---Henry David Thoreau


I will endure this now because my dread looms large, the cost is too dear.
I will pour this bright nectar, ounce after golden ounce, down a grimy drain until it's gone.

Until then, I will turn around in this little room of my days and nights,
and just wait, wait and just wait and wait. Because maybe someone will lose a key:

I will pick it up on the street one morning and find that it fits exactly
into the lock of the door of the little room where I have made my peace that is
not exactly peace and certainly not the dance I would dance if I could dance.

I notice there is a key in the pocket of my heart. All along, it has been there.
This key has a voice I do not want to hear. It speaks to me of a pain that has become familiar, a hurt that I know

I can endure, if I must. It does not
cease speaking, this key. The other pain is sharp, and quick, it says, it is sharp and terrible and it lays waste to all that has held you in this half light.


It is too hard. I will drop it down the drain along with the nectar
that damned nectar that warms like soft sunshine on a baby's face. And that will be that.
And that will be that.


2 comments:

Arlena said...

I just wrote you the longest message and it got deleted. How frustrating is that! If I remember correctly I had said: "the type of dance I would dance if I knew how to dance". That's the line of your poem that I really loved.
Wayne, Rosa had a blast at Yanelis' party. I think the sangria did her a lot of good. You should have stayed. You would have laughed like crazy, but I'll show the short video I took of the wedding, in it you can see the funniest things. Especially, when I catch Yanelis' bouquet.
Much love,
Arlena

Wayne said...

Sorry I didn't stay for Yanelis' wedding. You know I don't like to wait. I am such a "gringo" about time! What can I do? That's one of the irritating things about me.