I embrace the silence of time
which flows between us like a deep
green river divides a continent, unwittingly.
With the integrity of water, pure
at source it moves the endless particles
of unconscious matter downstream, insistently.
The nature of your stillness
is not partial nor given to hostility,
but steady as the undercurrent’s implacability.
I stand opposite, reaching toward
your presence on the far bank, estranged
by the swift passage of nights to fall, indissolubly.
I am doubling up on challenges again this week:
Sanaa's Midweek Challenge asks us to draw inspiration from Pablo Neruda's poem, I like for You to be Still.
Kim's Weekend Challenge, references the poem Let Evening Come, by Jane Kenyon and asks for a pastoral theme written in tercets.
So lovely, the silence of time like a great green river.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sherry. I imagine it that way, an unceasing flow in one direction.
DeleteGood Double, Kerry. "... the silence of time which flows between us like a deep green river ..." may have one large log jam in its flow.
ReplyDelete..
Indeed, Jim! Thanks.
DeleteJust as the river flows, so does the silence as the distance grows. This is beautiful Kerry.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Linda. I feel it may not be in its final form but I am happy to have collected these thoughts together.
DeleteLove, love the descriptors ending each stanza ... sigh.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Helen. I wasn't sure about including them.
DeleteThis is utterly gorgeous, Kerry! 💖 I especially love; "I embrace the silence of time which flows between us like a deep green river," such a deeply philosophical image. Thank you so much for writing to the prompt 😊
ReplyDeleteSorry it's late but I couldn't pass it by. Such an inspirational poem by Neruda.
DeleteStillness & evening go hand in hand. Standing on the opposite bank... rivers can be so gentle and yet at times, truly dangerous. (your poem works with it being the antagonist or the thing that blocks you from the other person) I grew up with one just past our hayfield and railroad tracks. Spring can bring dangerous floods - but usually it just meanders along, but always muddy and dark. I was always afraid of it.
ReplyDeleteRivers are so fascinating as they attract us in so many ways but are themselves quite powerless to decide anything as they flow downhill and finally rest in a lake or the sea.
ReplyDeleteA river can bring calm, serenity, but also become a flood one cannot swim.
ReplyDeleteThe sibilance in the title carries its own night sounds and emphasises the brevity of this time of day, Kerry. The opening line is almost like a motto, ‘embrace the silence of time’, something we should all do. Your poem flows gently, like those ‘endless particles of unconscious matter downstream’, a sad song of missing someone you love, of lonely nights.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the challenge, Kim. I loved writing this poem.
DeleteThis is so serene, and lovely, Kerry!
ReplyDeleteQuite a syntactical challenge, layering a poem around those four four-syllable rocks of rhyme -- they are both essential to the poem's motion as the very things which draw out the meaning. Each stanza is dependent on those words. So you get flow and stasis, out of which yearning and lament are drawn. Well done, Kerry. My only nit is that the choice of "hostility" in stanza 3 unnecessarily frets the dominance of those four cardinal words. Maybe mine is a weird reading, but I still loved the poem.
ReplyDelete