cwedmart

He looks on across sprawling fields of futures and possibilities. Behind him is a pin prick--the past.  The linear thing that happened. It's there, like a root, underground, surrounded by dirt and worms. It's there, bursting from seed and pressing to the surface.  Always pressing into the fields. The past is the root. We are the tree.   The fields make up the rest. And the fields are where the magic happens. They're a playground of sorts. Full of possibilities. Governed by illusions. Ruled by nothing that can be controlled. Dangerous and deadly and too big to comprehend. So he looks across them all, fields and fields and endle

Am I clinging too firmly to this life?  The reason I ask is because I worry about the notion of missing out on growing old with her, and her as well. I want to be my daughter's daddy, and my wife's husband, forever.  It's selfish, really. Or perhaps I'm coping poorly with the compression of time that comes with age.  That must be it.  Now, you see, I worry about hypothetical situations--where I'm dead, no less.  Worrying is all the "Heaven" my brain can fathom.  I'd worry from the grave if I could.  Maybe I can.  

I'll blink, and she'll be tall. I'll blink again, and she'll be wise. I'll blink a third time, and this nest will be empty, like it was so many months ago. Life is joy and pain colliding like detritus in a hurricane.

This is a poem that will never be finished.  It will look finished, sound finished, and have a period at the end.   But I have not finished writing it.

Time, a melody that exists between blinks of an eye. On two ends of a blink, a baby girl, once walking, now stands on timid feet.  I'll blink again and she will be tall.  I'll blink again and she will be wise. It is a symphony that seemed long as we listened but, in hindsight... is it missing measures?  Where have the notes gone? I'll carry her in my arms one day, like any other day, then set her down for the last time. Another blink, and my home will be quiet.  The toys on my floor, gone. The baby, grown.  Time is a melody written while the eyes are open, sung while they are shut.

Little one with marble eyes, See the light, above and under—with little eyes see only dreams. In all you see are stars and wonders. Chase not after the ponderous pondering of silly old worrying sods who dwell on things they cannot change as though they all are gods. Hold on to your light--those dreams and stars. Oh, how it tries to stray! And once it tries, that's when you chase!   You mustn't let it get away.

Evil, silhouetted on the horizon, set before a blazing sunset of stolen pinks and blues. He sees it like battle standards; hears it like cannon fire, but far away. So far away. The flashes go off.  A crack follows soon after. He feels the earth tremble beneath him, but only the low end of greater tremors afar. "They're all around me, now." The battle standards swell over what meager few beams of sunlight remain, nearly blotting them out. Nearly? There's an air of cruelty, too; of death and despair. It rolls in ahead of what's to come. And he feels it. Deep in his bones, and deeper, he feels it, knows it, lives it. "It's coming,"

He felt the sensation of moving in reverse--being subtly pulled, as though he were a petal, plucked between two contraries.  Time regaled him with a moment of clarity.  The baby slept.  The lover mingled.  The music played.  Everything magnified, and he was prepped for the heart to be cut open, forever. That was the pull:  On one side, a mother's hand, guiding; on the other, necessary pain; invisible wounds that dare to be seen; flowers grown between the contraries.

I began to write a poem on being a father. As my fingers tapped the keys, thoughts swirled into frenzy. How will I teach her everything I know? Are the things I know worthy of being taught? Of what does she dream, when that tiny voice comes out in the midst of her sleep? And the inner voice, when she's yet to know any words, what does it say? Does she worry?  Does she wonder? Does she wrestle with the infinite? Does she know that she is loved, and that love is both the heaviest and lightest burden to bear?  Heavy, as in crushing; light, as in freeing. I gave up the writing.  Deleted everything I'd written down. There is no way to s