I am in a curious spot right now, caught between assessing, reflecting, working, and moving forward.
In the interim, I’ve decided to post some poetry from my collection entitled, Explanations. Wishing everyone peace during these turbulent times.
If I look at you through the filter of the past.
I only see what was.
If I focus on the mistakes you’ve made,
I trap myself next to you,
in pain,
in the past,
me that person who was hurt,
and you unthinkingly that person who hurt me.
If I triumphantly hang onto my wounds,
and won’t release you from your affronts against
me,
then we both are stuck in an ugly place,
where there is no hope for a better you or me.
If I look at you through the filter of the past,
I miss everything that you are now,
and that I have become.
I cast a net into the ocean,
sure of what I’ll catch,
but time and fate and winds of change
bring back the unforeseen.
I mark a page in my journal,
confident of what my life will bring,
but twists and turns and stumbles unknown
lead down an unexpected road.
I see myself in a passing glimpse,
in a mirror that has hung
forever it seems in the same place.
And I say to my image “Who will you be
when I look again tomorrow?”
Quite sure and quite confident
that I have no idea.
Can you hear them,
When it’s quiet?
Voices speaking softly.
Gently guiding,
Leading you along
To remember and See things clearly.
Can you hear them
When the world is roaring?
When the noise of life
Becomes deafening?
Then it’s so easy
To listen to louder voices,
Voices judging, pushing,
Demanding.
Can you see the difference
And where the difference leads?
One to peace, one to truth,
And the other spiraling down.
All our lives we chase the dream,
that elusive thing we’re sure will bring us
happiness,
Wealth, success, admiration of strangers.
We strive and struggle and hope
that this will fill the dark void.
But the void only swallows,
and stretches,
and absorbs all the light.
In the darkness like a hungry child,
it cries more, and more and
more,
and never enough,
A ceaseless hunger,
Until fatigue and hopelessness takes us.
For how can never enough ever be quenched?
Perhaps a different path,
following a different voice,
where peace is never obtained at such a
steep cost.
There’s a place outside of the storm,
or inside if you prefer.
It’s an odd view,
somewhat unobstructed,
ever so slightly removed from the chaos,
from the franticness,
from the rampant delirium.
It’s a calm perspective, where vision is cleared,
and profound thoughts are born.
How can your world change
in a moment, a simple breath?
What seems solid and dependable
simply slips away as though it were a phantom.
All its simple, dependable expectancies shimmer
into a memory.
Leaving you wondering where at all
is solid ground.
In a moment your world bends in on itself,
remolding and remaking in unrecognizable ways.
You become the anchor around which all else
reforms itself.
You are its constant,
against which the waves crash.
Copyright © 2024 by Evelyn Klebert
Explanations
In this, her second poetry collection, Evelyn Klebert takes us down the intricate path of a personal journey.
Life, with its particular struggles, pitfalls, and ultimately triumphs, clearly begins to mirror a universal path, the quest for answers that we all ultimately pursue. In this reflective, esoteric collection, we can all explore and seek some of life’s elemental mysteries and, hopefully, when all is said and done, emerge with some Explanations.
Evelyn Klebert 