forest path, image by Mirosław and Joanna Bucholc, on Pixabay
November 8, 2023
Insomnia. Tinnitus. I look it up. There’s no cure.
I get up, start to cook, 4 a.m., can’t afford heat, so
cold that I see my breath, but the stovetop starts to
warm me. Oatmeal. I keep the lights off, the pure
darkness, soft. I sit on the couch and the night also
sits with me. And God. God too. The temperature
fades from my thoughts. Two thousand years ago—
I think of two thousand years ago and how I’m sure
there were people who met Jesus and still said no,
his body right there, to be touched. What did I do
with this life I’m given? Did I devote it to pleasure?
To distraction? Selfishness? Was I somebody who
missed what was right there in front of me too?
Will I allow faith to heat my insides like a volcano,
and to move me almost to the point of seizure?
I put on a record: sounds of Maria Callas’ soprano
voice. I sip water with ice, and pray for my future.
*
When I was twelve, I’d walk home from school
when everyone else where I lived
would take the bus. But I loved
the walk. It turned from city
to village to township to pretty
much just woods, no houses,
nothing but trees and the birds
would come out, everywhere,
the animals too, that stayed away
from the city. They’d come out
and say hello to me. It felt like
that. Deer would come so near
to me. Like they had no fear.
Like they knew I was kind,
or trying to be kind. And I
remember the sky, how it, too,
seemed to come nearer to me,
like it was saying hello, like
it was telling me that it saw
how I was trying to be kind,
and the clouds would touch me,
and I would feel so, so safe.
___________________________
Ron Riekki’s books include Blood/Not Blood Then the Gates (Middle West Press),
My Ancestors are Reindeer Herders and I Am Melting in Extinction (Loyola
University Maryland’s Apprentice House Press), Posttraumatic (Hoot ‘n’ Waddle),
and U.P. (Ghost Road Press). Right now, Riekki’s listening to Joy Wants Eternity's
"From Embrace to Embrace."
(December 2023 issue)
Two great poems, and I especially like "When I was twelve..." and nominated it for a Pushcart Prize.