Rachel Landrum Crumble – 1 poem

Depression: 3 a.m.

 

 

William Stafford: “Your exact errors make a music

that nobody hears.”

 

Except God…

Hearing the dark, I spy no

future, only the indelible smudge

of History.

 

By now, unheard symphonies

percolate out of wakeful sleep.

Nightly interrogations continue.

 

Flying too near the sun, dreams are ash

by morning. In God’s wake

I ride the slipstream, bruised by

surreptitious river rock.

 

Hemlock is often mistaken

for wild carrot, or Queen Ann’s Lace,

but the tongue, like the heart,

knows bitterness as a coroner knows

an embolism.

 

On a far continent,

Hope is a bronze dancer

in a white robe, spinning

under the sun.

 

 

 

 

Rachel Landrum Crumble