I wake against the tepid heart
of a noncommittal day,
a colourless haze
swathes its drooping shoulders,
not a furrow on its brow,
not a flicker, nothing to tell me
if the sum of those nights
weighs heavy upon its arm,
if the guilt of promises made
is numb upon its palm,
if the stitches we counted have come undone,
the needle of moon dragging a thread
of stolen crimson light,
that line of unwinding blood from a
broken spool of right,
how will I know if this day stays silent,
how will I know
if this energy
trapped in a stream of flowing thought
is me,
if this waiting thought
lost in the scream of energy
is me,
not a word escapes its lips,
not a tear relieves its eye,
how will I know,
if this day will only stretch
across one dimension,
cutting infinity,
swallowing the sky,
disallowing time,
disavowing dreams,
denying me.
how will you know.
THOUGHT PURGE 
How will I know, how will you know? Interesting turn, inviting more questions…
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Thank you… questions keep multiplying, and the answers stay out of reach!
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Yes, that last line does throw a new light on the questions … so the speaker, not the day, is disappearing.
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Thank you.
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how will I know,
if this day will only stretch
across one dimension,
There are days when it does not seem to jive as we have wanted it to!
Hank
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Thanks Hank.
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The shift to second person in that final line really made me read the whole poem again, and I see something like a plea I didn’t see in the first reading.
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Thanks Bjorn.
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Nice setting of a scene. “The needle of moon dragging a thread
of stolen crimson light” is unforgettable.
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Thanks so much Colleen.
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My goodness! This is soo wonderfully contemplative and deep!❤️
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Thanks Sanaa..
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Some great language in this one, starting with the ‘tepid heart of a noncommittal day’ and ‘ nothing to tell me if the sum of those nights weighs heavy upon its arm’! I have a picture of a night-walker come to chew the fat. And then there’s the wonderful imagery of sewing, although the lines ‘if the stitches we counted have come undone, the needle of moon dragging a thread’ reminded me of Neil Young’s ‘Needle and the Damage Done’. I also love the uncertainty and despair of those final lines:
‘how will I know,
if this day will only stretch
across one dimension,
cutting infinity,
swallowing the sky,
disallowing time,
disavowing dreams,
denying me.
how will you know.’
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Thanks Kim. Tibetan Buddhism alludes to the reality of existence, that consciousness is real, flowing as an unbroken stream, while the self in itself is just an illusion. The rumination perhaps stems from a book I was reading on the subject.
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In one stream of thought you confound epistemology, call out cosmologists and re-raise the hard problem of consciousness; not bad for a non-committal day 🙂
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I think the three of them are having a good laugh together somewhere… while I juggle non answers!! 🙂🙂
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🙂
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