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Vine.
You are mine.
Just this time, and not for long,
caught you hanging
from the sky
as wind ran fluting
around my ears,
a rushing song –
some “Yoooouuuu
areGoin'toDieeee...”
half-truth, like
most I think
I hear.
But
then you struck
an arm, cut my scream: I held
you (dangling
severe as I,
beyond the tree rings,
fell). Still faller,
You hold me well
and tighter
than the air: I fly
in a swing
(your creak, my
holler,
Our
balanced hour).
Nothing now destroys but joy:
you crack, stretching
in my grip,
while I tire, squeezing
your twining green.
No hand nor pain
feeling,
my trembling slip
begins: our
coming fall
becomes
care-
less
be-
tw
ee
n.
Does the poem make sense. At least intuitively? I hope so. Just trying to illuminate the mirror: men actively seeking acceptance while women wait for coming interest (and the silence in the air around both feels teeming with invisible judgment) – like apes and vines, men and women, each in a kind of free-fall. And when they meet, it's seldom forever: at some point, one can no longer hold on, the other can no longer sustain it, or both – and then the scrambling, of a lonely free-fall begins again.
ReplyDeleteBut in those passing moments of strained connection, each sustains the other: the constant dread of falling and the constant emptiness of dangling alone retreat into the background for a while, until that careless sanctuary breaks – such is the nature of things in this jungle.