August 19, 2021Self-Doubt
I am not a real poet says the poet
writing about birds and images.
A bird, fluttering in a made-up
horizon doesn’t wonder if it belongs there.
I am not a real bird says the bird that is
a figment of the poet’s imagination.
The evening sky has a peculiar way
to be torn in pieces while still
making sense: take this as the best
example of how human life is made.
Have you asked yourself
who is watching the picture?
If not you, the bird. If not the bird,
you. Between both stretches
a moment of hesitation named
sea. This whole scenery may be
taking place in the synapse
of a painter, but the brush hits you
harder than the axe the frozen sea;
then, one sane instant brings clarity:
there is no bird, just a dark spot
on the retina that you wanted to mistake
for something else. It isn’t the sea,
it is the memory coming back
unwanted in the shape of the sea.
The ones who have suffered
will see it differently: not a bird,
but a plane and towers on fire,
it is true: trauma hits in waves
of salt and sulfur.
Take this as a token for the uncertainty
lying in things. Take this as
the ultimate image of self-doubt:
an ethereal setting of a sunset,
and a poet, in the body of a bird,
wondering if he belongs there.
from Ekphrastic Challenge