—
Revisiting a past poem as my journey hits its 43rd Birthday
THE REST
I was once silent amid the noise,
shadowing the world in stillness
while all else found its motion,
watching dreams slip swiftly
through fumbling hands.
I’d been held and felt nothing
in that very touch
but the visceral arousal
of man at his most primal.
I’d seen a lifetime of possibilities
with single glances
and built worlds in my mind
before blinking them away.
I held a man’s hand in a taxi
as we raced through a foreign city
I’d once called home, while my mind
ran to thoughts of someone else
before remembering a touch,
of another, from long before. Once,
I circled the globe and returned home
to find that home was but a word,
a word that wakes a memory
to plot a beginning,
as weightless and mobile
as the drifting traveler.
Once, I was silent
but in that silence,
in all that stillness
I found a voice.
I am, like you all,
no more than a burnt-out,
used-to-be, falling star,
sparkling in front of you
although my future’s already faded
somewhere light years away.
As I hurtle through this journey
my eyes fall sleepy;
but my mind rushes towards the rest,
looking, always, for the rest of me.
—
All words by Damien B. Donnelly