Nocturne
POETRY FORMAT, 26 Dec 2016
Emanuel E. Garcia – TRANSCEND Media Service
By degree the grasses,
Bark, the sharp
Angled faces of rock,
The hanging mist around us,
All turned dark
Only the brooks
We chose to follow
Kept – at junctures,
Leaps, declivities,
Over impediments –
A native white
Beneath the undiminished stars
I might have rested
Relishing how, unperturbed,
They endlessly flash forth,
I might have carefully
Arranged my bones
To nestle in the earth
Where I might watch
How they would disappear
As daylight coaxed
Our breaking truths
But we were traveling
Together, there was only
Time for pace, pursuit,
Disguise, abandonment,
For grappling inward,
Stealing, lavishing our woes
With every brief embrace
Before the colours crept
From hiding into view,
Before the calmer waters,
When at last we paused,
Showed growing strange
I read nothing in the skies
That day,
Where or how they merged,
Where or how you fled,
And I,
That night,
The unimaginably new.
________________________________________
Dr. Emanuel E. Garcia is an American poet, novelist and physician who now resides in New Zealand. He may be contacted at emanuelegarcia@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 26 Dec 2016.
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Sometimes, it seems everything resonates: there’s a wholeness and an interaction between ourselves and others, ourselves and Nature. Here, it seems, there’s a sense of almost nearing that state of resonance…, but something intervenes: one can’t quite “arrange” one’s bones to “nestle” in the earth; “truths” are breaking….
Here’s a relationship way off kilter; seeking, but not finding:
“… pace, pursuit,
Disguise, abandonment,
For grappling inward,
Stealing, lavishing our woes
With every brief embrace
Before the colours crept
From hiding into view,
Before the calmer waters,
When at last we paused,
Showed growing strange.
We have all been here, I suspect. One can’t reach adulthood without experiencing this kind of longing and loss, connectedness and disconnection. And Nature plays a nocturne of obscure and haunting emotions….