of shards and fragments

"of shards and fragments"

 

One story walks the desert,  
learning to endure.  
The other climbs the rock,  
vanishing without answer.  
Both leave fragments-
survival and absence-
to be carried, not resolved.  

A cry begins,  
cut short,  
collapse denied,  
endurance affirmed.  
What cannot be answered  
is carried instead,  
a shard held together,  
not abandoned to despair.  

Imported order dissolves,  
whether in white dresses or suburban fathers.  
The land insists,  
and the psyche learns to endure-
not with despair,  
but with fragments carried forward,  
a stoicism born of dust and rock.  

 

 

 

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Reviews

[Michael Sun Bear]

Very interesting. You have me actually studying this for meaning. Maybe it’s my imagination, I have only been to Australia through movies and documentaries, but your poem elicits for me memories of the interior, the land that was once populated only by the indigenous people. I loved the first verse, then the meaning got kind of hazy for me as I read on.

[redd Brick Keshner]

Apologies for the lack of information. It’s a commentary on an ongoing discussion with a friend about their response to the film/novel “Picnic at Hanging Rock” (1975/1967)

[Michael Sun Bear]

Ok, makes more sense. I saw the film long ago, remember enough.