I'm Weary

I stared at myself in the mirror this morning. Such a sorry sight. My torments, of late, have taken their toll. My eyes are blurred and bloodshot. I’ve developed dark, haggard bags beneath those failing orbs (closely akin to Mr. Clinton’s, I’d say). I’m functionally deaf (all I seem to hear is the gnashing of teeth). My complexion is sallow…and
I can’t seem to smile.

I’m weary. I’m exhausted to the bone. I’m tired of fighting, worrying, grieving, repenting, negotiating, planning and, all the while, disintegrating. I’m tired of dreaming the same moribund dreams.
I don’t have the strength to tilt at windmills any longer.

I want all this to end.

I want to sleep. Oh, how I would love to sleep for more than just an hour or two at a time! I want to be Rip Van Winkle for a while, then wake to only myself…with life striking seductive poses just beyond my coffee cup.

I’m so weary. I need a boost. Luckily, crutches come in all manner, shape and form. I reach for poetry. I seek the words of wiser souls for consolation. After all, poets can soothe and heal with perfect words and beguiling imagery. They surely can.

Here is a poem I meditate upon often. It captures the truth and hope of my existence:

Poor Angels
By Edward Hirsch

At this hour the soul floats weightlessly
through the city streets, speechless and invisible,
astonished by the smoky blend of grays and golds
seeping out of the air, the dark half-tones

of dusk, suddenly filling the urban sky
while the body sits listlessly by the window
sullen and heavy, too exhausted to move,
too weary to stand up or to lie down.

At this hour the soul is like a yellow wing
slipping through the treetops, a little ecstatic
cloud hovering over the sidewalks, calling out
to the approaching night, “Amaze me, amaze me,”

while the body sits glumly by the window
listening to the clear summons of the dead
transparent as glass, clairvoyant as crystal…
Some nights it is almost ready to join them.

Oh, this is a strange, unlikely tethering,
a furious grafting of the quick and the slow:
when the soul flies up, the body sinks down
and all night – locked in the same cramped room –

they go on quarrelling, stubbornly threatening
to leave each other, wordlessly filling the air
with the sound of a low internal burning.
How long can this bewildering marriage last?

At midnight the soul dreams of a small fire
of stars flaming on the other side of the sky,
but the body stares into an empty night sheen,
a hollow-eyed darkness. Poor luckless angels,

feverish old loves: don’t separate yet.
Let what rises live with what descends.

* * *

I want to be that ecstatic little cloud again. I yearn to be amazed.
Let what rises live with what descends...please.

* * *