Meditation On Solitude

The light along the bay burned through the night
as if to emphasize the dark, not tame it,  
throw the hours upon slow fire and show
that one keeps watch, and may not sleep, as if
there hovered over him a stillness he
could not profane.

From each high moment's passing ecstasy
a stubborn and exasperating love
lurked underneath, fed by a god, perhaps.
There was a wrenching,  nagging urge to change,
to weep for those who can no longer weep
and offer them the tears.  He knew

that every soul who finds himself alone
upon the stage when pomp and circumstance 
is over,  then might contemplate the bag 
of lenses that he took from all the  years
before, and testing one.......his very own,
would look for some far palace on the hill.

Alas

The child of every age is prisoner
between soft barricades of stubborn self.
No wonder death is the escape of choice,
for everyone makes change of circumstance
but when the night arrives the walls still hold,
the shackles are secure and freedom is
a strange and distant song.

He would not sing to dawn, unthinkable.
For set apart, his journey was within,
the walls his covering, and their soft flesh
his eminent domain.  And all we need
to see is just the light reflecting there
upon the water,  through the endless night.
               ~
Copyright © | Year Posted 2012

Poem

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Dietrich Avatar
August 18, 2012 at 6:11 PM
This is a profound poem on solitude, a thinking person's type of poem, robert. Very well crafted. I enjoyed what you had to say with it.
Ludden Avatar
August 18, 2012 at 9:34 PM
Thank you, Andrea
Mac Donald Avatar
August 18, 2012 at 3:06 PM
This makes the heart and soul swoon, Dean. A gentle, tender write, that causes my eyes mist over. I know if I send this to myself, I'll weep. Yet this is the beauty of your creativity it captivates and restrains one's emotions. A subtle but powerful write, Dean! When you publish a book, I'd like to buy a copy please.:) This write makes me happy to feel sad! Love, Mikki
Ludden Avatar
August 18, 2012 at 3:14 PM
I don't think I'll ever publish. Not up to those high standards. However, it gratifies me that one such as you find power in it. We are perhaps alike in that. But I do have my sensual side as well.
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