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Live Within the Ambiguity


Woman's eyes / behind cloth.

We search the margins of the world

for a returning voice.

We ply, in the deepest parts of the night,

for starships to carry us, born upon the

winds of magic, to deeper resolve.

We long for the credible voice,

for the echoes return,

for the whisper of light,

for dawns reassuring.

We take part in mystery,

often only in words,

sorry substitutes for

matters of the heart.

We live for the silences of

the inner worlds to break.

To make known our vague

and aching miseries,

our arching fears,

the trembling question,

the extended sadness.

We wish for a resolved chord,

Drumbeats that will not fail us.

Smoke from fires, from rocky

plateaus, set far out in the

distant hills.

We suspect silence

and absence.

We live within the cold science of

sound barriers never breached.

But words too deep for words

are attended. Eternity listens.

Barriers have been broken by

the velocity of our pain, by the

dizzying speed of our desperation.

The moon’s dark side

vibrates in anticipation

of the light.

The night hawk whispers

to the wind gracing its

feathers,

walks on columns of air,

suspends within the silences,

courses through wilderness

shadow, and divides the

distances.

Great Longing, occasionally

we hear the church bells

from outside our window.

But words can be irregular things,

vague attempts to describe

the mystery

of what we feel,

what we seek.

Perhaps enough to say we

are witness to the Reaching,

to the Inexpressible, Within.

Knowing such Undefined Eloquence

is better Known by One who

translates into purest language

this broken and stammering tongue.

John A. Bragstad is the author of two books: Compass Season and Nature's Poetry of Life. Both are available at Amazon or in local Grand Marais bookstores.

"Live Within the Ambiguity" is taken from a upcoming work still in progress: Surviving Solitude in Style: The Psychology of Being Alone in Real Time.

Special thanks to Pixabay for these arresting images.

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Birch River Books

Grand Marais, Minnesota 55604, 

johnbragstad.com

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