The Worst is Done.
(a poem)
hello, sunshine. before i start, i wanted to remind you that my poetry book (Waiting on a Rapture) is coming out soon and you can read the previous poem here. i’ve also shared the playlist with you. i truly hope you get a taste of the vibe. check out my media recs at the bottom. sending an abundance of love. <3
as someone who considers herself to be a novelist, i’m genuinely surprised by the ways narration seeps through into my poetry. this was deeply exhilarating for me and could easily be classified as one of my favourite poems so far. the poem is a terza rima, with slight contemporary modifications and a lack of precise iambic pentameter. the narrative ranges from mythology references, to pockets of thought around grieving things that aren’t necessarily dead. a lot of it is written in defiance of turmoil as a threat, somewhat walking the lines between being fearful of the things that happen in our lives and being deeply morose in our confidence that it could get better again. for those of you who do not care too much for that context, please leave. (kidding, please stay), but i would love to find community in people who resonate with this narrative. so share your thoughts, personal interpretations, stories and anything else that brings this poem closer to you. without further ado…
The Worst is Done
Centuries were buried in the moss that spidered every tomb, weathered by June’s call, its gale swelling past our ears, wishing, begging, as one would for rest, within the emptied flume. As above, the earth had rid itself of doe and deer too young for vengeful soil and pleated ferns below, but older than the woodsman’s home, lost in the mountain clearing. A sirenic voice startles the lake in its trepid stretto: An end is closer than you think, yet not as woeful as your liver-scars treading toward our troubled ages, in the wake of sunken boroughs, July’s tearful stream runs full into the bell jar, her searing blue against fragmented autumn light, that crooked hum flailing as fish do, inside their brine conservatoire. Sink your teeth into the flesh of life; behold the goodness of a filthy girl, how she yearns to be lowered into the rotten soil, leaving in her wake an air of cataclysmic blithe. Let the others pray that she returns sobered, soaring once more, not as the snowbird, but the shining cuckoo, leading the ark and its natural citizens through the thrush of Monroe. Where my grave dirt meets your honest pew, I will sit and be the witness, leaning left until my eyes find the candle's hue. Like Cygnus, who swallowed the bones of friendship, his arms burned into wings that left the river for the sky, his heart a bitter swirl of Guinness. These limbs will grow again in spring. Their psalms of promised love will shape into the cross, devouring all the bloodied kings. And the stars will make room for the end of us, a rapture borne from grief, the surest song, as moss returns to dust, we accept what must. Now we rest, where we belong.
yours,
Thando. x
🎞️🍿:
Meet The Robinsons (Stephen Anderson, 2007)
Dazed & Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993)
The Hand of God (Paolo Sorrentino, 2021)
🎵:
Waiting on a Rapture playlist