Untitled V Poem by Katrina Harms

I am incapable of cultivating passion
without the struggle,
and so dwell in the root cellars of memory,
of shame from a woman who lived long ago
(who wore my face)
Time has carved out my body
like waves against rocky caverns,
But it has not given me hope.

The hollow sounds of remembrance,
Like unspoken prayers once committed to memory
Their familiarity is a painful recollection,
as the scent of death, masked by flowers

Until, all at once, emerges the new songs of being:

Nothing devours the soul more completely,
Rendering it so lushly surrendered and satisfied
The achingly familiar stone-dropped weightlessness
Unwinged ankles suspended, nourished, bare-

It is awakening, it is the edge of sleep
From the pitiable state of isolated silence
It is resounding fullness
Like water filling a bowl
Like light consuming a grotto
Like you and I,
When at first we lost our fear
and gave ourselves over
to love.

What, then, remains
But to avert our gaze from the unchanging
Inertia of the daytime,
Of the restless uselessness of night-
Can we reconcile our own insignificance
and continue the long march towards
what has not yet been-

To consume, to be consumed,
And live knowing it was worthwhile.