I Grieve for the Wanderer
I don’t remember the forgotten souls who wander still, on the prairies under the moonlit sky. They were once the closest to me, and one above all the rest. She gave me light and made me whole, and now she wanders too, without solace.
She wanders where the sun no longer rises, on the dark side of my subverted dreams. Floating along the open canyon, holding the will to mask her discontent, she passes from this dream into the reality of my night’s contention and I can begin to see her for what she really is. The shifting of an oak tree’s leaves beneath the weight of a sudden gust, the cloistered air creeping into the open night from its hollowed ground where the day’s warmth still holds dominion over wretched creatures, these leave the rumors of her presence too clear to be mistaken.
I did not want to remember her now beyond my hopeless dreams. But the memories, though buried, are too powerful now to be constrained. They make their way to me still. She wanders where I can see her now, the moon casting soft light on her cheekbones, her hair flowing in young brunette wisps behind her stroll, her form covered in a white silken gown. She wanders along the ridge line, and the tall yellow grasses part ways to make passage for her. The wind greets her wherever she goes.
But if I imagine you, wanderer, the way that you are, what will you do? Do you wander now, or have you always been with me, in body and memory true? If I remember you now, what will I become? There is no place for those who cannot remember. Those penniless souls who don’t wish to know what the past was and who inhabits it live long lives full of grief. I feel these long years of striving coming to a close, that chapter of who I am has turned its last page.
What must I remember if not those fallen in battle, the war weary wives and widows caring for their broken men and placing flowers at the graves of the dead? What must I remember if not the end of times for the broken spirited, the sickly and the frail, the hopeless and those choosing death over life? The end of their lives passed in the middle of the night, while the shadows were deep with despair and the corners of their rooms dark with rumination on the perils of a new day. The restless vigil to their sorrow casts a pall over my soul and I cannot yet escape from it. I am not freed from it, and still I must remember something hidden. It haunts me still.
Wanderer, what if I was to grieve for you now? The risk of my long years of avoiding you and your memory is that once I remember, I might never again forget. I might never again bury you within the darkest corners of my transparent mind, the subverted dreams I hold onto with all my strength. The thought of you and who you were is too distraught to consume without destitution soon following. I might never again recover once I remember.
I would see you, straining my eyes past the slow breeze sifting through the branches of those hollow oak trees, the trees barren and dusty and struggling to hold on in the unforgiving night. I could see you through the branches, your dark form illuminated only by the high rising moon never full but always with crescent ringing its outer band. You would walk across the grasslands without pain, the sticking weeds giving way to your advance. And if I stared at your form too long, you would stop then, and be motionless. You would say nothing but I would still recognize you, dark and distraught, not what you were but still familiar. The moonlight would shine on your face, showing just a glimpse of the way that you used to be, now lost for eternity. You would look towards me, and your eyes would be dead, hollow, and black. Your face would be young again, but the light would have gone out of it now. You would be left to the night winds and the soil to wisp along on the breeze and eat away, decomposing and divulging you, worms and all, back to your final resting place beneath the ground where I saw you last. I would be broken then, broken for good.
Where would I bury you now if I could do it all over again? If I could make things right, what would I do? If I could save you from being buried without remembrance, how would I do it? The men and women, those lost too young and too early in battle, they were buried too. They lie outstretched and bloody in sacrifice on some distant battlefield, they were buried too. Their comrades took their bodies and their bones from the dirt where the dead rested, just as they fell. They were lost too young, and they were ready to be returned in their purest form to the earth that sprang them forth, like flowers for a brief, joyous season in the open fields. Their friends took them from where they lay and buried them in sacred ground, close to where they were raised by grit proud and strong. They were buried in the dirt there, ready and finally returning to the earth as dust falls from sunny rays in short wind on the face of man.
The men and women who died too young from addiction and decay, they were buried too. Their parents and their upbringing, they took them from where they lay and placed them below the earth. They lie there, and their memories are no longer in their minds, but have passed away now to some other side. Their short lives were bursts of vivid colors, wild, rebellious, and blue, red, green and powerful, seeking to change everything at once. They rebelled against the world before they knew of its challenges, its temptations and the yoke of ancient years of its despair. How do we know if they suffered from being captured by the uncompromising nature of youth, the pull and the tyranny of their imprisonment? How do we know who they were now? They are gone, the same as you. They are gone and will be forever a memory, beholden to their youngest form, distant but true.
The men and women who died middle aged from addiction, they were buried too. Their families took them from where they lay, solemn and distraught. They said nothing as they drew their bodies from the beds, the law and medicine waiting in the next room, and brought them to the ground. They were buried in the dirt beneath their homes, clutching the last piece of their failures to their hearts, wishing for another chance.
I imagine these things because they fill me with longing. I imagine them because they level my heady insights. They bring my striving to bear. They witness my frailty, my weakness, my mortality, the things that I have for so long left unsaid and unknown to the day’s ambitions. They hold my boundless reaching down to the water’s edge, forever to be lost above the water. I imagine them because I do not know how to live otherwise. I do not know how to unsee the seen, how to forget even if I try. I do not know how to let you out of the nighttime being that you are, listening on the outer contours of space and hope, taking dark shape in my nighttime rituals.
But to see you as I should, I can’t remember you in the night where you now live for my joyless memories. I would see you in the light of day. For if life was anything to you, it was filled with your joys and your aspirations, your pain and your sorrow, but all in the light of day. There was sunlight in the summer, and scorched earth for adolescents who walk barefoot on the pavement at the height of day. They played while you watched. They kicked rocks and skated away while you looked on, hoping for their futures. If I was to remember you, I would see the day and you in it. I would remember you in your fullest smile and your lowest sadness. I would know that you gave us life, and held our hands. If I were to remember, I would know these things good and bad. I would know that you gave in to despair and lost yourself in abandon. I would see the bed where you laid and the room where you gave in. I would know it in my heart. If I were to remember you, wanderer.
