the Harbinger

Seems a lifetime ago that I wrote this poem.

  I could feel my soul dying, but knew not why.

  

I had planned, so carefully, my life,

  had chosen with whom I wanted to share it,

  crafted a family and home and vocation.

Yet, something was desperately wrong.

  I could feel it, sense it,

  but I couldn't see it.

It felt as if the life force within me

  was withering,

  and soon all that would be left

  was a body, a shell,

  a veneer covering a vast

  emptiness.

Just two years later,

  I learned...

and then, I spent the next ten years

  watching as it all,

  all of it,

  fell apart.

July 23, 1996

Why does my soul cry out so?

  Not the wailing of loss,

  but the whimper of the lost.

Why do the tears turns to rage?

   And from where do they come?

Why do I hide from those I love?

  Desperately closing out their voices and faces

  in the steady drone of the television?

What child is in me, scared;

  so used to the dark, comfortable in its security

  and strangling in its web?

Why does my soul cry so?

  What has it lost?

  Where should I look?

  How do I rid - finally - the desperate scream,

  the never ending sorrow, the emptiness?

Please God

  If only I knew what it was,

  I could work with it,

  soothe the pain, find peace,

  fill the emptiness.

Years have passed.

  Some moments so deep in pain;

  with the ever present boding

  that I am trapped inside with no way out.

I can no longer hide in this quiet hell.

  I must break out;

  I must understand how to break out;

  Please let me loose;

  Please let me go.

Show me the wound,

  Help me to heal it,

  Let me live, love.

Please..

I remember -

  I used to soar to the stars;

  I smelled the pines;

  I was one with the earth and sky.

There seemed no limits, no fear, no end

  to the possibilities, the love, the joy.

I remember -

  but I no longer feel.

The stars have wandered far from my gaze,

  The pines keep their scent from me,

  The earth has become only the surface upon which I tread.

  The sky - the impossibilities, the vast open of fear.

Where once there was excitement of adventure,

  there now is growing fear.

Where once there was simple wonderful joy,

  there now is anger and more anger.

What happened?  Where is 

  the joy, 

  the stars, 

  the sky, 

  the pines, 

  my heart?