And falling from the sky
Ink streak azure canvas curve
With tears tattooed crocodile
One each at chiselled cheek
And putting to one side
The tattered woven mask
A crooked sashay smile
Once used to hide behind
And weathering the Sunday storm
You show the sun your favourite side
An accessory to the shallow crime
You insist on parading as virtue
And here a word of wisdom free
Not to buy the world’s decree
That this is your branch, this your tree
You are merely what you want to be
One day we will all put aside
Those masks we have woven to hide behind
One day content
with the fragments there defined
Ink streak azure canvas curve
With tears tattooed crocodile
One each at chiselled cheek
And putting to one side
The tattered woven mask
A crooked sashay smile
Once used to hide behind
And weathering the Sunday storm
You show the sun your favourite side
An accessory to the shallow crime
You insist on parading as virtue
And here a word of wisdom free
Not to buy the world’s decree
That this is your branch, this your tree
You are merely what you want to be
One day we will all put aside
Those masks we have woven to hide behind
One day content
with the fragments there defined
7 comments:
We cannot ask questions deeper than we are, all learning is a reminding.
Yodood: we can always as deeper questions: all learning is self-discovery ;)
My auld Granny used to say: "Never fear to speak the truth you seek."
Thanks for reminding me of my auld Cherokee Granny.
beautifully wrought; stanza three particularly spoke to me, and the sense of the whole as both hopeful and tentative. you convey this tension so well, here in this piece.
CoaTL: by the way you spell auld I presumed you are of Scots descent but then you threw in Cherokee...
Scottish/Cherokee descent?
Harlequin:This is another piece that resulted conversations with one of my sons (teenagers can make you dredge up the heaviest shit)
Scottish, French, Scythian, Welsh, Irish, Cherokee, Choctaw, Osage, Creek and Ashkenazi-Bohemian-Prussian. Whew....
My mother’s lines are Cherokee-Welsh, Irish-Creek.
My Fathers are all the rest.
I was raised by four generations of Cherokee-Welsh Women. My great granny was the last woman born on a Cherokee Rez in the late 1800's.
My kinsmen have been with the Indians since the late 1500's, early 1600's. All were refugees of political strife and religious discrimination, taken in one at a time by American Indians.
CoaTL: What a great heritage: all hail cultural diversity! :)
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