Remembering the Rubicon
Remembering the Rubicon
My hand rests,
Cold and dead
In the palm of the one
Who rightfully owns it.
I crossed the Rubicon
Lifetimes ago.
I crossed it to save
My hand
And the ring on it.
My hand is dead,
But the ring is safe.
Both survived the crossing,
But one died of old wounds,
Succumbed to a whirlpool
Of memories and voices.
And now,
Somewhere in the midst
Of all the blue veins
That run through it,
I feel a pulse.
A choked scream
Crying out,
“Live, live, live,
For another.”
But I crossed the Rubicon
Lifetimes ago,
And my hand has died
With the weight of one promise,
A word of assent
Trapped in a jewel,
A diamond ring,
A beautiful death,
An ornamental jail.
I have never looked back
In all these seasons,
I have never looked back
To the place
Where the waters flowed,
And I rode
The high tides
To honor my word.
This hoarse scream
That erupts from my hand
Makes me want to crane my neck
And look at that place.
It makes me want to
Find the river,
The water-strewn canoes,
The ashes of another life
Scattered over dark waves.
It makes me want to
Pour life into
This hand again,
And escape my sentence,
Forget my promise,
Shun my honor,
And run towards another
In whose hands perhaps
My palm will be sun-kissed
Once more.
But I crossed the Rubicon
Lifetimes ago.
And my hand rests,
Cold and dead
In the palm of the one
Who rightfully owns it.
And the ring.
It just smothered the
Weak pulse that screamed
To live
For another.
Very very powerful – I didn’t fully understand the analogy, but then again, I’m a bit dense at poetry. But I loved the images.
Powerful werk. Repetition does wonders. 9/10
UT and I are destined to disagree, it seems. I found this one of your weaker pieces, actually. Both Secret & Dreams and Skeletons were stronger. The theme is deliciously tragic but I feel you haven’t entirely succeeded in execution. I can’t say more than that…primarily because I don’t know what else there is to be said. Hmm.