Crowds On Call for Really Bad Days

Procession of Characters from Shakespeare's Plays

Indulgent, I lean in to every

moment of day’s end—nature’s twilight

and my wee morning hours of darkness.

My spinal column gives up its task of 

uprightness, but though this tree sways, it won't--

it refuses--to lay down into sleep.

As if sleep were oblivion, Hamlet’s

edgy question.  As if insomnia

were certain, stating Macbeth's “Sleep no more.”

And guilt follows with the nastiness of

cover ups.  I accuse everyone of wounds

and error, before hearing new voices

demanding forgiveness, promising to

remember that we humans fail, crying

with Lear, "Howl, Howl, Howl," at last.

I am Hamlet's Ophelia, Macbeth's

Lady and Lear's sweet Cordelia dying

alone in despair, crushed and powerless.  

But surrounding these tragic figures are

siblings and confidants and creator--

evidence that life is more than metaphors 

we use to speak of pain, more than we see 

in the magnifying glass of fiction, 

more than trees and spines and philosophies.

When you hear me whisper and shout these words:
"We are more than . . ." help me fill in the blank.
The important thing is to be alive.

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2019 Susan L. Chast