Survivors

Survivors

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

All Is Well


by Steve King
© 2012


All is well, I promise you.
Do not be concerned by my
sometimes detached bemusements.
These are but easy retreats
to unspoke and stubborn dreams
where the past pursues new forms
and new wants reshape old charms.

You must not think ill of me.
These diversions inform but
my own still imaginings—
sparring with my old designs,
sanctuary from keen foils,
or just finding silence there—
call it whatever you will,
it is just a tiny step
removed from your waiting world.
Yours is no thin shadow place
to leave behind.  No burdens,
satisfactions unfulfilled,
no wasted unique glories
to drain the measure of me.
All is well enough, I know,
there in the outward brilliance
of common sight, where you wait
for my strange quiet to end.

I would explain everything
of this musing well within;
but there is still mystery
lying at the heart of it.
This mystery, this darkness
will not yield to my desires.
It’s a backdrop set against
somber glows from ancient pyres,
whose light never penetrates
inward from its waning fires.

And so shall the darkness grow
with accelerating years,
swallowing whole things once known,
making my dreams slip their grasp,
while old songs reprise as sighs.
I would trace each scattered spark,
and would try to harmonize
each echo, each fading note.
So far will my eyes not see,
nor ears own such reverie.

Yet all is well, believe it.
All remembrance must be so.
And so indeed, I wager,
are the unsung harmonies
a-play beneath your calling.
I will wait when it must be,
while you linger inwardly,
while you the passing choir
illumine with the flickering
of your own secret fire.


13 comments:

  1. All the elements and the darkness to boot: a mystery play performed in the mind. Very nice cadence.

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  2. silence is a scary thing...i def would much rather noise...or convo even to reassure me all is well...but sometimes there is still mystery and even we do not know the answers to the same questions you are asking...

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  3. A very telling examination of the thought process--or perhaps the heart's process at unraveling things, a life's worth, as we age. I do agree all will be well, though we write in the darkness, the words bring their own fires. I especially like the ending stanza, which to some extent resolves the balance of interactions the middle chews over. Always a pleasure to read your work, Steve.

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  4. It's a rare and lovely thing to read about one's escape into the the secret places in the mind from a man's perspective. Women go to their own mental places all the time, usually unchallenged. But let a man go there and he's apt to hear, "What's wrong? Don't you love me anymore?"

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  5. I love reading your work. This is so wonderfully paced, music in itself, and attuned to all my thinking and so gracefully ended as we drift toward a kind of end, others must find their own voices, their own private sounds and music too. Brilliant piece.

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  6. where the past pursues new forms
    and new wants reshape old charms....love these lines...the mystery exists..sometimes so hard to expose it all. A great write.

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  7. I really love your voice and I know what you mean... just b/c we look back at our past doesn't mean we're not moving forward.

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  8. I always enjoy your musings, like I am travelling to an oddly familiar path. I specially like the 4th stanza, old songs and scattered spark ~ Enjoyed the visit ~

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  9. a lovely reflection on introspection... part of getting comfortable in a relationship, for me, is allowing the space for times like these.
    just lovely.

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  10. From.."all is well I promise you"..to..Yet all is well, believe it" such a depth of thought and the internal workings out of our every day lives. I'm thinking of St. Julian of Norwich..."all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well" Thankyou.

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  11. Another classic write from you. This gave me the impression I was eavesdropping on an intimate conversation. There is an old hymn that came to mind..."All shall be well...", no doubt taken from Julian of Norwich, as Gerry points out. Lovely

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  12. The privacy, solitude of the mind and heart, where we must work things out .... a lonely, yet ultimately dark velvet place to grow to nurture one's self. I understand this, yet I agree with PattiKen...this woman, and many others, tend to think...and feel, you don't love me, you can't share? This poem illuminates...and in a masterful way. I love this poem!

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