Each Morning the Cobwebs

 

Each Morning the Cobwebs

(“You must eat these things in a holy place…” Numbers 18:10)

Each morning the cobwebs decorate my brain
in dusty fog; pain is the wall between overnight dreary
and midday promises of clear skies, though clouds hug the
lowlands no matter the time.

My mind has shrunk and slowed. It hangs on to old
impurities, a swamp of pitfalls, a canyon of cliffs, a
mudded well with walls so slick from slime, escaping
is no longer in the plans.

For each day forward, for the moment the sun and the
mouth of the well align,
there are a month of others when a monster hand covers
my only minute of warm, my only breath of light for
weeks at a time.

Some days hasten, some hold back, my hours are not my own,
they belong to the malady in my head. Some days are over
before I’ve begun. Some days repeat hour after hour, while
I hesitate to venture past the mailbox. Sometimes I take the dog,
sometimes I fear saying “hi”.

I will not excuse my damp flailing, the past failing, the present
and constant funnel where my wounded heart hears even the best
words as foreign babble. I’ve troubled you too long, son, daughter,
friend, peer. I’ve troubled you too long; only the dearest to me
know. Only the dearest heard the words rebounded from my
wounds and sounded like another angry hurricane to rip the
foundations again.

Perhaps I could trouble you for a meal, coffee, breaking bread?
Perhaps I could trouble you to sit with me, silent, a simple spread
so holy that soul and spirit are nourished,
dispensing with ladders, the climb to advancement
is found on park benches, sandy beaches, or a artisan picnic
before the storm roars down the river.

Perhaps my thoughts will be clearer before the evening ends.