This past week, with the various tragedies that occurred all over the globe, will be remembered with sadness. My heart breaks for the enormous loss of life that so many have witnessed and that so many more will mourn. This time of year is usually when I find poetry more suited for expressing the ideas swirling around in my mind, so I wrote a poem for the day that Paris went dark. My thoughts have been focused on Paris because it is a place where I have walked some of the streets, seen the faces of the people who call it home. I wrote this poem for them, but also for the people in Beirut, and for all of the people who have lost loved ones to tragedy.
November 13, 2015
I dream
and dream of another autumn,
when the trees and I were younger.
Every mark across my skin
set me trembling—
how fragile,
how delicate were my defenses.
Hurt spoken,
unspoken,
acted,
unacted,
so easily carved in the bark,
tapping at the warmer life within
and wanting to watch it drip away.
At every brush,
careless scar,
and deliberate bruise,
wishes poured out,
and tears, too.
Both to grow a future
when every etching might be
borne with a stronger bark,
and limbs firm enough to hold
both larks and ravens.
I awake
and wake to an autumn night
when the trees and I lay pieces of ourselves
whispering along the path of wanderers.
Leaves,
prayers
for the lost,
for those losing—
what we can give
when we feel the scars
in our own bark.
Leaves to the ground
and I to my knees,
whisper
hope,
cry
heartbreak,
whisper
hope,
growl
injustice,
whisper
hope,
weep
loss,
whisper
hope.
Ariane Peveto 