Adios amigos

Jillian Stoltz

Our moorings have been firm.
The same rafts that hold our metaphysics afloat.
The same ropes that bind us one to another.
So many small crafts, lashed together, a constructed terra firma, pretending we are not adrift in a great unconscious ocean.
Our grouping gave us the measure of our world.
There could be nothing beyond it but sea sprites of malevolent proportion, storms and swells and sirens that would lure a lonely mariner over the edge of the world.
Stay fast, we would say. This is our world. This is the world. Hope is here and beyond is death.
But this bright, summer morning I am severing some ties.
Our moorings have been firm.
Though less so than you thought,
And perhaps the ties I am severing today are nothing more than the admission that my ropes have been rubbing, wearing, prizing loose in the ocean’s salt for quite some time.
Honesty, though, is a blade of some finality.
Stay fast, you say. This is our world. This is the world.
This is our world, I say. This is not the world.
Hope is here, you say. You must believe that beyond is death(?).
Hope is here I say, but not in the form you claim it only.
Is this great ocean as small as you would make it?
If it is as great as you say, then let it claim me, and let it carry me to its fullness. Of what are you afraid?
But we have grown to speak a different language now, you and I.
I see your pain and your fear
as you try to understand my words through your experience.
Yet light bends through water.
My communication meets you imperfectly.
What more can I say?
I have cut myself adrift.
My heart aches as I wave you goodbye and bid you not to worry, my friend.
I leave the floating model of the world behind.
The current carries me gently from you,
But honesty is a blade of some finality.
And the salt spray stings my wounds.

back    /     to the top

© Kopiereg in die ontwerp en inhoud van hierdie webruimte behoort aan LitNet, uitgesluit die kopiereg in bydraes wat berus by die outeurs wat sodanige bydraes verskaf. LitNet streef na die plasing van oorspronklike materiaal en na die oop en onbeperkte uitruil van idees en menings. Die menings van bydraers tot hierdie werftuiste is dus hul eie en weerspieël nie noodwendig die mening van die redaksie en bestuur van LitNet nie. LitNet kan ongelukkig ook nie waarborg dat hierdie diens ononderbroke of foutloos sal wees nie en gebruikers wat steun op inligting wat hier verskaf word, doen dit op hul eie risiko. Media24, M-Web, Ligitprops 3042 BK en die bestuur en redaksie van LitNet aanvaar derhalwe geen aanspreeklikheid vir enige regstreekse of onregstreekse verlies of skade wat uit sodanige bydraes of die verskaffing van hierdie diens spruit nie. LitNet is ’n onafhanklike joernaal op die Internet, en word as gesamentlike onderneming deur Ligitprops 3042 BK en Media24 bedryf.