Inheritance
Written a long while ago, still rings true.
we have inherited this
moment of silence
the roar of silence
before the words that shatter
pour out.
it has been played before
this scene
you can feel it in your bones
the sinew sings
of times before.
and you move almost
as if under water
slowly, with exaggerated
turnings of the head,
waving of the hands.
the world is heavy
the air is full
with so many dead
peoples’ voices.
wars seem little,
strife seems neatly
sewn into patches
as if the years unfolding
backward were a quilt
and we view it safely
through a microscope,
each stitch red
from the blood of
those long gone.
But we are safe
it cannot touch us.
until something reverberates
in the now
in this now
here,
a body naked beside me
and the words that can shatter are repeated.
if I close my eyes and
let it flow, the years
make thunder. it feels
like my head would burst from it.
the keening, the moaning
the screaming of people in pain.
it is all here.
it is our legacy.
how little we learn
how carefully we delineate
how hard we try to insist
that we are so different.
but after you leave,
I roll over in bed,
and a murmuring sound grows slowly
into a sob.
a huge sound it is
full of the human voices
from all the places
that these old bones have been.
