POEM: "So Many"

SO MANY

Splittings: tearings-away,

When the wrong turn meets the right,

or the right, the left,

both flying with hearts dragging through dirt

along behind, into orbital air and distance,

hunting via telescope for other entanglements

or none at all.

For a time two had held both out- and in-sides

against each other, and grown,

the one into the other,

so that the separation of necessity involved some

—Rip

            -ping—

But the impression of each is left in the other,

still resonating, like a tuning fork,

the spectral echo that cannot fade,

A piece of love, of goodwill,

an eternal, invisible bridge.

No matter how sour or slow or spiteful or mysterious

(or sweet)

the ripping was,

the red and the hot of the blood

is a bright reminder

of colorful times and shared warmth;

the hole is a hologram containing the whole:

it remains, to be honored, to be tended,

to be mined for the music there

—or not, if goodness fails.