I Saw A Thing Today

I saw a thing today. It was not you

but it resembled you precisely. It

laid open lines of salt in me that map

the travels of my heart and bleed, and bleed

away my days, and yet made me a man.

Though nearly fourteen years have passed it's still

today, will always be today, your face

my constant yardstick in the glass as I

come storming round the outside of the track

and reel in your myth of sage advance.

I saw a thing today. It was not you

but with your face it brutally recalled

the circumstance of my promotion to

sole bearer of your hedonistic cross.

And so I pay your dues, and take your wage.

And those undriven roads and unhung shows,

unwritten chapters of my life, are now

unsung laments, regrets abandoned to

the flow of current presence passing, present,

past. I pass you staring blindly on.

I saw a thing today. It was not you,

though it was empty like I feel on nights

when constellations barely speak their names;

though it bore traces of antecedence

that whispered shadows to my frozen thought.

I will no longer proudly show you all

the things I make and know that you will praise

them irrespective of their worth or skill.

I will no longer care if I live up

to measures forged in pain and pampered fear.

Perhaps I have resigned myself to your

continued residence within my skull;

perhaps I'll take you with me for the ride.

I saw a thing today: it was not you,

but it resembled you precisely.

Valencia, January 1997 and Midi-Pyrénées, August 2010

I wrote the first twenty-two words of this poem in the waiting room of a Spanish mortuary after viewing my uncle's corpse in an open coffin. A few attempts to expand on them followed, none successful, until now. Having decided recently to apply myself to writing poetry I knew I wanted to develop these words, and that I needed to engage with this subject, and while thinking about it, I noticed that the few words I had seemed to work in iambic pentameter; so I decided to use blank verse, which I love, and the rest of the poem tumbled out in very short order.