Symmetrical Companion
It must be
there walks somewhere in the world
another
another namely like me
Not twin
but opposite
as my two hands are opposite
Where are you
my symmetrical companion?
Do you inhabit
the featureless fog
of the future?
Are you sprinting
from the shadows of the past
to overtake me?
Or are you camouflaged
in the colored present?
Do I graze you every day
as yet immune to your touch
unaware of your scent
inert under your glance?
Come to me
Whisper your name
I will know you instantly
by a passport
decipherable to ourselves alone
We shall walk uniformed
in our secret
We shall be a single reversable cloak
lined with light within
furred with dark without
Nothing shall be forbidden us
All bars shall fall before us
Even the past shall be lit behind us
and seen to have led
like two predestined corridors
to the vestibule of our meeting
We shall be two daring acrobats
above the staring faces
framed in wheels of light
visible to millions
yet revealed only to each other
in the tiny circular mirrors
of our pupils
We shall climb together
up the frail ladders
balancing on slender
but steel-strong thongs of faith
When you leap
my hands will be surely there
at he arc's limit
We shall synchronize
each step of the dance upon the wire
We shall not fall
as long as our gaze is not severed
Where are you
my symmetrical companion?
Until I find you
my mouth is locked
my heart is numb
my mind unlit
my limbs unjoined
I am a marionette
doubled yp in a dark trunk
a dancer frozen
in catatonic sleep
a statue locked
in the stone
a Lazarus wrapped
in the swadling strips
not of death
but of unborn life
a melody bound
in the strings of the viol
a torrent imprisoned
in ice
a flame
in the coal
a jewel hidden
in a block of lava
Come release me
Without you I do not yet exist
May Swenson
Isn't it strange when you find a poem that perfectly expresses everything you didn't know you were feeling?
3 Comments:
Tell me about it, you're not the only companionless person in this world. Look at me, reading blogs as a gap between the heaps of coursenotes I have to study for my exams, writing silly comments and lamenting my asymmetrical position in the process.
As you can see my previous statements show I feel quite the same way.
So that is one fine poem.
thank god for the internet then, right? we can all commiserate and be asymmetrical together.
I love this poem. I found it in Love Speaks Its Name: Gay and Lesbian Love Poems, which I bought in Greece, in lieu of Sappho. god bless Everyman's Library.
What a wonderful poem. I already knew I was feeling that way, but it's so good to find it articulated perfectly. Poetry makes you feel less alone simply by demonstrating that other people have always felt the same way as you do. I wish I could write the way people feel.
Blogging helps with the companionlessness too though ( :
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