Pentecost
“We contain the other, hopelessly and forever.”
—James Baldwin
In the end, it doesn’t really matter
who loved who more
Loneliness is a siren
that keeps drawing us back
Perhaps we are the lucky ones
blazed by the redemptive power of
accidental truths –
smokey orange and blistering
* * *
The blisters and smoke don’t really matter
The fire calls us back
Redemption
is lit by our own match
We’re lucky –
we haven’t lost that fire
we haven’t forgotten what it feels like
to be blazed by love
* * *
Love itself is redemptive
is a spark that ignites
We blaze our own truth
our own luck
In the end, it’s all
smokey flames and blisters
© 2021 Cynthia Linville
Regret—
The weight of it in your fingers
unpolished, but alive
coldest just before sunrise
Its liquid voice
chanting you into
the center of
your hollow labyrinth
Chances you squandered like rain
slippery, without edges
echo and echo and echo
* * *
Persistent voices echo
from the center of your labyrinth
chanting squandered chances
like falling rain
Slippery
unpolished, but alive
the liquid weight
falls through your fingers
Always coldest just before sunrise
* * *
Cold sunrise edges sharply
cutting the labyrinthine chants
soothing your voice
into liquid
polishing you
softly
into life
Drops of light
pool
in your cupped hands
echoing away the night
© 2021 Cynthia Linville
Cynthia Linville is a poet and photographer who collaborates with musicians. She was managing editor of Convergence: an online journal of poetry and art for ten years, and her two books of collected poems, The Lost Thing and Out of Reach, are available from Cold River Press. Visit her website at CynthiaLinville.com
Loved these pondering s
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