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December 30, 2014

Future’s Jagged Joy. {Poem}

cliffs ocean

I stare my future in the mouth and see fangs.

Change is coming
Crackling like a summer storm over the far valley
Fierce, snarling, terribly inevitable.
I stand tall on my mountain ridge, beneath the wildly crying boughs,
Refusing to go where it will be safe.
I try to think of what the next twelve months may bring,
And I realize all I know is
I know not where I will be –
And isn’t that kind of glorious?

The storm rumbles closer
All the small things, save me, have made themselves invisible.
The trees whip furiously, bending in impossible ways –
But that’s okay.
I understand their wind-voice is not a scream but a song.
We are unafraid and raw, these trees and I
We move together
We survive

Closer, closer
Change is coming
My hair is down and tangling, whipping at my cheek
I am already streaked with the first indignant pelts of rain,
But I shall not move away.
There is no recklessness here!
Have I not always been responsible? I plan; I am methodical.
I do nothing without reason, without thinking –
Thinking more, thinking farther
I think I have been thinking for a very long time

The storm is almost on top of me now
And it makes me laugh
So I cast my arms wide: welcome, welcome
Truth is, I tremble, mightily, but it is not with fear.
Truth is, I weep, but it is not with mourning.
Truth is, I shake because I am on the edge of dancing
Because change is coming
And I am the one who summoned it forth

It is me
I have done this thing
I have manifested
I have heard my own voice, and gods, is it loud!
The fangs, the thunder, the wild shudders of wind and rain
They are all mine, which can only mean that at long last
I am free

Where will I be in twelve-months time?
Perhaps I will still be here laughing,
Or perhaps I will have fresh scars.
Perhaps my entire mountain will come tumbling down
And at this last, most frightening thing
I shall rejoice
On discovering I can fly.

Change is coming.

 

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Author: Catherine Oliver

Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: Durand at Flickr 

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