A Refusal to Die

Go ahead, try.
Starve me to death
with silence,
a dry desert,
harsh, only the sound
of the wind,
of my own voice
echoing through the canyon,
a cry for help, lost in the night,
foreign, like a Gregorian Chant,
both beautiful and intelligible,
a thing of the past, haunting
but no more understandable
than the death of love.

Watch me whither,
slowly gasping,
a dry voice, hungry for an ear,
lost, but always searching,
my song less a dirge
than a determined mantra,
a movie score of suffering and growth
that plays low and soft,
but stronger than you can understand.

Watch me grow,
for my roots run deeper than you can imagine,
deep, thin veins stretching
both to heaven and to hell,
feeding off both,
finding reason to live,
to believe, to fight past the dry night,
to create my own spring,
to defy the barren winter,
to live,
not simply, merely
survive.

About this poem.

It’s been a long winter, both weather wise, and life wise. I am not out of either.

But I will be.

The picture was taken at the edge of the James River in Richmond, Virginia, as my son and I walked along the riverside a couple of weeks ago.

Tom