Late Saturday afternoon
and I walk out onto the solitary country road.
The sky has cleared,
no clouds and the wind bears down
on us from the northwest
and on that wind out of that clear sky
over the fields and trees I finally get a sense
of the world, the whole world, the whole whole world
as I had forgotten it – as if wind
is blowing across every surface,
through every tree, mountain pass,
across every dessert and ocean.
And every wall.
The great thumb of sadness
presses itself onto my little heart.
My chest swells, a rasp runs up my throat to find a way out
through gasp and spit. There is no one
to hear the sound it makes.
I take a breath and call to the frogs and ducks in the ditch.
I have to tell them we are sick, we have brought illness
upon ourselves.
I know what you mean, they say,
we tried to tell you.
And now the trees are listening too
(like they don’t ever listen), and they lean in
to comfort me. We’ve known for a long time
say the birds, half heartedly, at the bird feeder.
But the whole world I say, like one insignificant marble
dropping on the kitchen floor. So small, so very, very small. It could
roll behind the fridge.
We tried to tell you said the trees and the bees,
but you wouldn’t listen. We asked the wind to help
but still you wouldn’t listen. And now you know sad,
and we hate to see you sad.
I collapse
into my soul, sadness has nowhere to go, nothing to offer. There are too many faces
telling me to resign, surrender, fight, protest, rebel, deny, accept. The curve
is now a wave that sweeps up my soul off the ground, my feet
into the air, and lifts me, where there is nothing to touch or hold onto.
Andrew Binks 