“Mariana in the moated grange.”–Measure for Measure, Shakespeare
You lie on the bed
your heart pounding &
you think “Something’s missing
again. I experience an absence
like I’ve never known before.
How did I get here?”
And you talk to many people
but you’re on ‘auto-matic’
saying only ‘right’ things,
the things they need to hear
until they abandon you at last
like so many others.
Till you drift once more
& you begin to dream
more than ever before
of rivers, parks & stars
as you wonder “Was I
ever there?” “Did I do that?”
And `Why did it change?”
And so you take comfort
in a thwarted sameness,
the labyrinth of repeated time
& mourning duties–
the maimed rites of forgotten love.
And all the while,
a river flows endless,
beneath the eddies
of your too-familiar day.
………………………..
“I am half sick of shadows.” –“The Lady of Shalott”, Alfred Lord Tennyson