Something Old, Something New

Excerpt from “Moments”

Moments there are when heart and brain ring clear,
When the eyes see and when the apt ears hear
More in a second’s tick than in a year –
Moments at evening when the stars lean near.

And once I thought
Quick instants such as these,
That my new senses caught,
Were promises of vivid days to be
When I should stand grown up,
And brave, and full of careless, flaming song,
And free.

-Hervey Allen, 1889-1949

“Goodbye, hello”

I never dreamed of saying goodbye;
to everything all at once
My heart labors so
My eyes fill and empty
My chest tenses
and my ribs truly are a cage for the organs
longing for a place with no bars
I look up to the heavens
yet, cannot see my future written in the stars
for the sky is black and bleak
this is life, they say. Sober. Mundane.
I never dreamed of saying goodbye;
to everything, all at once
I am a landscape in human form.
Full of peaks and valleys
brimming with rivers of thought and also
frozen seas where love cannot travel
Winter hath held her grasp
Somewhere there are flutters of Spring,
and rebirth comes to light, mostly in my hands
Time in here has its seasons, too
I am often left in wait, dominated by Autumn
constantly shedding cells
getting rid of what is dead
I long to be free of these releases soon
I can’t possibly be bare
Whatever would I do with myself?
and with whom would I speak of these tendencies to rebuff the new?
This is a time of eminent renewal
an intrepid sense of loss
my memories drifting away on a late Summer’s breeze
my thoughts caught on a fence somewhere
never making it over the mountains
never fully gone
and never very close
I never dreamed of saying goodbye;
to everything, all at once
I never believed I could let go

-Kate Sherbo, 2014