Wrote a poem yesterday on the prompt ‘Stone.’ An earlier poem ‘Stone’ was written by Charles Simic. Today I’ve written the poem ‘For eternity,’ for the prompt ‘Pebble,’ taken from a poem by the same name by Zbigniew Herbert.
I was picked up from the river bed
By a crane
With many others like me
And taken away in a truck
It rumbled on for hours
And I wondered
where the journey would end-
In a garden
Of a kind, old, man’s home perhaps
lining his flower beds
waking to the fragrance of fallen petals
and the company of halting birds
Or maybe a toy box
amongst a bonny child’s treasures –
left over crayons, pencil shavings
shells and a fuzzy teddy with one eye
Kept safe
For eternity.
Slipping and sliding
as it drove on
I moved from side to side
And there I saw a dream
that I was more-
than a treasure in a toy box
or a lining of a flower-bed
I saw, I was the cure
the balm, the answer
gliding over bare, soft skin
tingling, healing aching sinews, tired cells
But all dreams are not to be
Not in the manner as we see
For in a jolt, I fell off
Tumbling and rolling
And there I lay on the tar road
In the scorching summer’s heat
Gently kissed by the warm wind
I was picked up again
By a boy this time
And hurled
He sent me flying
Oh! The feeling of moving on my own
Exhilarating while it lasted
Until I touched bare skin, soft, wet
Just over the eye
A trickle of blood
She bled
And I bled too
And fell to the ground
Helpless
Disgraced
Ashamed
Guilty
Stained
for eternity.
I’ve written this poem based on the sad events in India, related to lynching. In honor of all those who lost their lives because of the small mindedness and convoluted idea of justice, of a few idiots.
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