Poem of the Month

White Beard

Tonight I am the old man’s white beard
wizened and grizzled in deep lined cuts
resigned to the slope and bend of flesh
gravity pulled furrows over ashen dust

It was the clink of glasses that started this
taking small potent steps down the hall
inching closer to her hated breath
the weight of her, heavy, lurking,

creaking the same wood boards
Can one grow into a giant overnight
when the yearning stops and the
becoming is

knowing one’s art is revealed, suddenly
unearthed by one massive heave
of black earth

To know a person for so long
and see their face go colorless
foul scents utter unrecognizable clods
of rancid words and clouded tongue

Should I take on hatred and this dark
into me, onto me, held and sacred
like the vows now melted away by
the lightest heat from palest sun

Something disappears from me tonight
A piece I can never reclaim or repair
a note held deep in my heart
now scratched thin out of a rusty flute
aching for its rounded wonder
spitting tin and teeth and nails
It was the clink of glasses that started this
a dark celebration and bitter turn
a collapse and fold and deep line cut
of the old man’s white beard

-Rick Wright