What Hope There Is…
Reflection Poems
Alas my father,
Lo my mother,
Alas my brother,
Lo my sister,
I come.
No lies to tell,
No self to hide,
No expectant bites
can tame me.
No illusions as such
but just as I am when
sorrows are ripe and
festering wounds afflict
my flattened breast like
the swaying hips of merengue
dancers lost in the notes
of a sassy, pulsing beat.
High, even higher the ropes
of my innocence turn as I
jump alone between agitated
spaces.
No more stares of hard indifference,
No home save this strutting,
aging shell.
No familiars
No binding cords,
When happy ever after never comes
to me and my soul must meet its
dark peace.
For I am but a child again,
I fly, smile and laugh as sunlit
fields flower within my closing.
Yet and still I smell the frying
fish of those past days when once the
preacher’s voice clearly rang out
with,
“La negra, la blanca, la chica,
los hombre, the crazy life are but
childhood notions ending in the fullest
seasons.
Where nothing is hidden from time and
the gaze of the Surveyor weighs
what lies beneath us all in these last
days.”
But for now my being must settle its
claim and seek its rest in what hope
there is.
more by DEBRA BISHOP
photograph by Danist Soh
