Ashes Blow Over All Things

Audio Reading: https://soundcloud.com/tomalexwrite/ashes-blow-over-all-things

For every happy thought
for every smiling friend
for everyone who thanked me
I let the ashes blow

For every hand I lent
for every promise made
for every declaration of love
I let the ashes blow

For every moment of understanding
every instant of communion
and every apparent good deed
I let the ashes blow

Somewhere, there is a garden
overgrown and wild with weeds
one brown bench book-ends it
and there I spend my days
as I turn myself inside out
in the incessant search for meaning

But every shard of hope I find
any glimmer of talent or humour
quickly disappears from view
as I let the ashes blow

So much love I’ve had and been given
so much trust pinned upon me
so much that just gets buried
as I let the ashes blow

Somewhere, there is an attic room
shadowy sanctuary of scribbles
with scalpel nib I carve apart
the body of a life ‘just lived’
dissecting its every organ
in the wild-eyed search for meaning

My burning words of questioning
they scorch all things
and I let the ashes blow
my burning words, unstoppable
they scorch all things
and I just let the ashes blow…

[2011]

Thanks for reading.

Note: I was looking at my writing in 2011 and was struck by how full of questioning, uncertainty and sadness it seemed to be when taken as a whole. The poems always seemed to come when I was at the start of something, never once I’d gained the wisdom. And only ever written in times of sadness, never reflecting on times of joy. This was sad poem all about that realisation – and a turning point in the way I choose to organise my thoughts.

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(Photo credit: http://www.marybethheffernan.com/skills/ashes)