BREVITY

I got an old book

and spent some time

with it in my arms, cuddling it

making love with it.

Spellbound by that cover

again, my precipices and ideals awaken:

nothing was embalmed,

life was not a stupid expectation of

decoration, recognition, whatever.

That dog-eared page made my mind still

and I could remember who I was and

how frightening it was to be myself now.

For some time a silent disheveled middle aged woman

searched for all those things she needed once more:

she was the only one who could rework the puzzle.

She started to read the poem shyly.

Words were shivering, getting bigger,

engulfing me.

The universe had written a story which

I was compelled to live. The universe.

Calculating the distance that separated the woman

from the girl, I drank the poem, going back through

adulthood to flowers, seeds and idealism.

Unbuttoning my soul and in foetal position I was

in this heroic encounter.

How briefly everything exists!

Karla Bardanza

Copyright©Karla Bardanza 2011