Today's post is a poem. This is rare for me, I don't generally write poetry, I find it incredibly hard when every word has so much weight and importance, when one wrong adjective can buckle the structure and bring all that emotion and thought crashing down. (Although some writers I know say it should be the same case with prose, but if you're telling a story, shouldn't the pace, flow and cadence come naturally? You can over-think some times, I can certainly over-write and I kinda think life's too short...)
But I love the way poetry works, the way an entire piece can be a Polaroid of emotion, a parable, a metaphor and a riddle of meanings. Poetry allows you to cloak your intent in deep, dark waters, so that on first reading it can seem like a summer's day but it has this edge, a promise of a storm, an unnoticed broken rung on a ladder, something big moving in the darkness of the lake... Poetry is like stealth-prose, usually smaller, sleeker and full of surprises. Good poetry anyway.
I don't often write poetry, but I find that sometimes its size and nature is ideal for emotional writing. It can allow you to write about a subject without feeling the burn of the fire, without diving so deep that you suddenly find you can't breathe...
This is quite raw, I've not worked on it much, but the moment it captures feels true...
The Empty Chair
This chair;
worn and old but comfortable,
the wooden skin polished and varnish thin;
though I sit in it,
it waits for you.
Outside, the blue sky chases clouds,
bird's flight casts shadows.
The wind changes and I know
you're out chasing feathers in it;
following the seasons
from marsh to wood,
from sea to snow.
I can see your glasses pushed up,
high on your head, above binoculars,
Your hair ruffled like crows.
Your stillness and silence
making you part of the earth.
I can hear your key in the door,
The dog barking and your shout,
"Get out you stupid dog!"
The waxed jacket slides from your shoulders,
with a scent of trees, pepper and tobacco.
The chair creaks as you sit and reach for the paper.
