CW: None.
First,
There is the procession of the snakes.
A wave of speckled heads with their thrilling patterns,
the tangle of their bodies as they weave
between one another dancing,
explaining what it means to live;
the anticipation of the soil.
Then, the judgment of the living,
the whispers of those who cannot remain.
I step out of the house, onto that red line.
I walk a mile for the sake of appeasing fate.
Behind me, the delicate gasp of some winged thing
tickles the back of my neck,
hums in my ear, to tell me of the rot to come.
I will turn a blind eye toward the morning sun.
I will speak to no one,
silent as the stone, cautious as the funeral-goer,
leave this to confront tomorrow’s tongue
before the dawn, if the dawn will ever come.
It’s taken forty days and forty nights of this
and I’m still not sure what waits at the end.
The owl flying overhead,
carrying within its taloned feet the sweetness of life
extinguished.
The climax of a long, ill-fated swoop,
what else is there left to impart,
besides the impact?
Does the death of death itself mean eternal life,
or do we then find a new way to die?
The owl looks down from above, into the burning sun.
I haven’t yet looked back.
Can you avoid the procession if you turn the other way?
Does the ceaseless marching carry itself over your grave?
The footless soldier
tapping at the soil to make himself heard,
can you hear it even now,
beside the feathered beat of your heart?
When I began writing the poem, “At the Sight of my Grave, I Stumble,” I was experiencing some concerning symptoms related to my heart that ended up lasting for several months. While the problem was ultimately resolved, at the time, I was seemingly faced with my own mortality in a very tangible way, and the work I made then was pulled from that anxiety. The imagery in this piece is inspired by my southern upbringing; the buzzing of insects merging with the droning of a distant marching band; those parallels found within the wild beauty of our environment and our own growth and decay.
