For my one faithful reader, I want to apologize for not fulfilling the promise of a poem a day. I want to say that life got in the way but that's no excuse for not actively trying to create beauty in the world. Please accept my apology...
HENRY wrote this next poem. HENRY is a professor who struggled for a long time to keep his marriage together. HENRY would like to think he's not to blame for anything that happened, but I suspect, deep down, he knows differently. Everybody likes to feel loved. Everybody has their breaking point. I just wish HENRY realized this earlier...
SOUL MOUNTAIN
One warm winter morning
when the weather felt like spring
and the impending divorce hadn’t deadened my desire
to do all things daring,
my wife and I hiked Soul Mountain.
We journeyed side-by-side, not six inches apart,
and I kept brushing my arm up against hers,
hoping she’d grab it, hoping we’d walk hand in hand,
yet every time we touched, she’d move further away,
every time I spoke, she’d answer with silence.
So, finally, I just focused on the forest:
on the trees, on the rocks,
on the small bands of light reflecting
off of hidden patches of snow and ice.
What started as two tracks, ended as one,
and I spent the afternoon staring at the clouds,
feeling as lonely as the sky, as lonely as the world,
as lonely as a solitary tombstone forever framed by falling flowers.
