literature

Like Christmas

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Anthony-Ryan's avatar
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Published:
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Literature Text

I.

To lie down and sleep through the whole night
feels like my only task,

yet I have almost always failed at it.

What I do in the daylight gets so distant
that it disappears--

then night comes, as unanswerable as a riverbank,
as close as the space between my body and my clothes.

What I really want to do, I've never really done.

II.

There is snow on the jagged key
of the house's gables.

From bed, I imagine the way it looks.
I want so badly to say "Follow me there" to someone in the snow.

III.

Every morning the birds seem blotted out,
the way I like to blur points of light to white and orange
dandelions.

Their songs are hidden in the polygons,
the white spaces between thin branches.

IV.

Christmas Eve, I string my wash between two walls,
drape one shirt at a time
over the radiator.

The film of dust lying there
gets wiped clear
with the first two or three damp shirts.

V.

I dream of Caesar getting shivved,
the space between his body and his robes
gone,
his betrayers lowering him to the ground.

Brutus asks,
Here lies the east; doth not the day break here?

Casca replies,
No.

VI.

I want to see cranes glide out of a mist
toward clear water.

I want all this longing answered.

Instead, the snow covers what the land is trying to say
before I can lay my hands on it.

What enters the mind at certain times
is so secret,

so imperceptible it aches.

VII.

Dust covers the clothes I had laid out the night before.
I live in a place of slowly falling things,

yet the heaps all seem sudden
and surprise me.

Outside, the pine trees whiten
with all I had hoped to gather.

I inhale the contents of the air,
my contents.

More aging,
more gazing through the snow

toward something so significant,
it can't be seen.

VIII.

When all it took to get there was a little sleep
through a quiet night,

the day is one hell of a place to be.
bits, motes, stars.

Edit:
the morsels that were best
have disappeared.
the hunger is prepared,
served,
delicious.
© 2012 - 2024 Anthony-Ryan
Comments13
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PennedinWhite's avatar
A wonderful collection of words and thoughts. I always enjoy your work, and this is no exception.

Well done, friend. :heart: