My Song Poem by Seamus O' Brian

If i unveil the song of my soul,
a stagehand lunging on the rope
of an opening night curtain,
the sine-wave opera
of agony and triumph,
the day-crawling
monotonies,
all transformed into the motion
of the airwaves,
the unseen ebb and flow
across the tides
of the oceans of air—
my life poured out
like chalk-boundaried blood
on the night-slicked pavement,
and no one hears,
what have i done?

If i select the jewels of my existence—
the pain-forged gems of the
memories of living, burnished bright
in the dusty soil of my years
by a million trudging footsteps
pressing in to the whipping
winds and biting rains
of life's indifferent oppression—

if by grit of resolve i force these
huddled-over treasures into the
cattle cars of words and lines
and release them to rise
like light-born lanterns
one after the other,
carrying my soul to the stars
bearing the ether of my joy,
my dearest aspirations,
my most intimate glimpses
of beauty; the marrow of my meaning
and the sinews of my significance—

if i set them free,
yet no one touches the lines
and feels the most fragile
shuddering earthquake of
empathy, if they lie dormantly unread
like the stones of a un-plundered tomb,
if they gather dust, slowly crinkling their
edges until the great reckoning
of the dustbin,
then what have i done?

Every man is a poet; every life an epic,
every step of every sojourn
a line in the quatrain of the cosmos,

so i will sing my song to the stars,
scribe my words
to the epochs of time
in their silent overwatch of humanity
swaying in the breeze of eternity,
lifting forth words and songs
like sun-vanquished petals,
quietly hungering to be known.

Hoping to be remembered.

Hoping to be heard above
the yawning silence
of eternity.

this, then, is my song...