Asghar Abbas's Blog - Posts Tagged "gloaming"
ALBA by Rana Kelly.
ALBA
Waking dreams
of
thyme, thistle
blankets of
autumn leaves
songs sung
alive and solid
beneath great
and
breathing trees
mountains purple
in the gloaming
during the seconds
of sweet twilight
that sound like
crushing crashing seas.
tempests that
rival the hearts
of all very wild things.
Cairn stones outlined
in the darkness
They are all
just borrowed time.
Silver starlight,
Roiling remote,
Writhing, angry,
Cruel and
beautiful.
The hope in my heart
Is the
moon behind shrouded clouds,
Hushed and softened
Outlined in white.
My ladder Is rickety
Jacob has
Gagged and
abandoned me
broken rungs,
nightmares
and
Splinters,
dead hot
Winters
Blackened branches
Snap bone twigs
trod on
Crushed
left
To a fate
less
than nothing
of who I thought I’d be
Wolves howling
small on the ground
with no warm signature
in calligraphy
Hush now,
Lie down
Go back to sleep
Underneath the
Still bower
in a deaf forest
of dead trees.
Waking dreams
of
thyme, thistle
blankets of
autumn leaves
songs sung
alive and solid
beneath great
and
breathing trees
mountains purple
in the gloaming
during the seconds
of sweet twilight
that sound like
crushing crashing seas.
tempests that
rival the hearts
of all very wild things.
Cairn stones outlined
in the darkness
They are all
just borrowed time.
Silver starlight,
Roiling remote,
Writhing, angry,
Cruel and
beautiful.
The hope in my heart
Is the
moon behind shrouded clouds,
Hushed and softened
Outlined in white.
My ladder Is rickety
Jacob has
Gagged and
abandoned me
broken rungs,
nightmares
and
Splinters,
dead hot
Winters
Blackened branches
Snap bone twigs
trod on
Crushed
left
To a fate
less
than nothing
of who I thought I’d be
Wolves howling
small on the ground
with no warm signature
in calligraphy
Hush now,
Lie down
Go back to sleep
Underneath the
Still bower
in a deaf forest
of dead trees.
Civil Twilight.
I want to write about the time we were there in the trenches. Do you remember that? Fighting what wasn't coming at us, warding off something that wasn't there. Toiling hard, going farther and farther away from what made us, well, us, exerting even further, then utter exhaustion. But later, there weren't any exhumations; there were no bones left to sift through. So there was no need for ossuaries of any kind.
But for a little while that we were alive and down there, there was only us, mists of blood around our heads, red ribbons twirling in the air, tying us together, binding us, keeping us there, making us remain there, even after we had left. Did I leave you there in the sodden muck in the midst of all the discarded shells, or am I still there? I didn't come to your side; you were always like a bullet on the ground, then you were one. That's where you are now, still hoping for some respite. Yeah, I'm not writing that. It would feel too much like a confession.
Where we are now, even the ghosts refuse to stay in the corner. They are stirring, aswirl.
They were here, but we are not.
Then we are standing in the shanties the army had made into their offices, staring at all the letters soldiers of a forgotten war wrote to their loved ones.
All the letters written on the Wall.
But for a little while that we were alive and down there, there was only us, mists of blood around our heads, red ribbons twirling in the air, tying us together, binding us, keeping us there, making us remain there, even after we had left. Did I leave you there in the sodden muck in the midst of all the discarded shells, or am I still there? I didn't come to your side; you were always like a bullet on the ground, then you were one. That's where you are now, still hoping for some respite. Yeah, I'm not writing that. It would feel too much like a confession.
Where we are now, even the ghosts refuse to stay in the corner. They are stirring, aswirl.
They were here, but we are not.
Then we are standing in the shanties the army had made into their offices, staring at all the letters soldiers of a forgotten war wrote to their loved ones.
All the letters written on the Wall.
