A Prophecy

I carry my memory like blackwork inked upon the skin, a sinewy dragon of days wrapped in clouds of lotus blossoms and invisible rain.

Sometimes I feel each moment is a new world waiting to be discovered, and I am the first foot, a privateer without charter or flag.

And sometimes I think I am sole witness to my own pain, seeking another who will broker my misery for a trifle. If there are others, where are they? 

Why do they not come?

I remember how hard it is to forget, how passionate passion really is once you’ve had a taste, how writing is a distraction, a relief, and a salvation that still requires the body and the 
blood.

For once I’d like to feel that I’m not strap-hanging amidst a crowd in a trainload of false starts.

I did not choose to travel this way, never took time to embellish a tiny thought in a deftly wrought villanelle or to write my poor refrains in sonnet form or in cinquains or to scratch out a simple homily with lines that might end in a dash—just like Emily's.

One day there will be no writing, and on that day, I will walk into new skin, or I will walk into fire, and the blazing flame will burn away everything, and my name will be ash, the skin covering my bones will melt and slide to the earth in a puddle of smoke and grease, and my bones will be ash.

There will be fire. 
There will be freedom in the fire. 
The poor will still be with us.
You will meet God everywhere.

© Paul Wittenberger, Substack, February 11, 2024