The Cruellest Blade
“might I cling
to the blade of the hour
as does the stick-brown bone
and may I mark the milkweed’s state of mind” –
Walking Bethany Hills Approaching Devil’s Elbow by John B. Lee
Perhaps I should leave these walls,
decorative box wrapped up in brick
and window, well-worn faces
fogging up my glasses,
instead tend to pasture’s green.
But once out there
in Nature’s play-land
surrounded by silent heartbeats,
horsetail, reed, and grass,
to what blade
might I cling,
some sharp as glass, ice
or worse, the dreaded paper –
cuts that make the soul shudder,
or time, cutting into me, into us all.
Should I surrender
to the blade of the hour –
Nature’s never-needs-sharpening knife
that pares away the ages,
as does the stick-brown bone?
I am time’s meal worn down.
Maybe this is why the earth
feels more like home.
If I talk to myself,
may I hear the echo
as the rustling of blades against wind,
take note of bird call, converse with stones,
drink in the spirit of the monarch,
and may I mark the milkweed’s state of mind.