"Community Life in Poetry"
a year of poetry, a day of celebration, a constant community voice

Poetry

Mindful

Today, winter silence. Rest. An absence
from delusion’s torment and head-beating
the battered walls of his room, such nonsense
of our noise too much to bear. The bleating,
his vocabulary. Today, a walk
across the frozen lake, son and father
holding hands. One lets go, forgets the chalk
line, leaps ahead. Anticipates a shore?

We cannot know. He lifts his arms, controls
no flight, staccato rise, fall of mittened
hands. Soundless plain of sheer release his goal.
But then, who’s mindful, what cruel restriction
invents the trap, the wounded room, a shore.
Silence, flight, the plain, what we all reach for.

Remindful

Today, a walk. Rest. An absence
of the noise. Just winter silence.
No delusions nor head beating
the battered walls; reason, nonsense;

his vocabulary, bleating.
Across the frozen lake, reaching
for a shore, father, son hold hands.
One lets go, lifts his arms, leaping

free, controls no flight, rises, lands,
forgets the chalk line, claps his hands
at soundless plain of sheer release
that cruel restriction’s trap demands.

We cannot know the shore he sees
nor heal the wounded room he flees.
What happened to him, who could see?
What happens to us none foresees.

-- Ellen McNeal

Reprinted with the permission of the author.