Poetry & Prose by Jo VonBargen

in the stillness of the night
I walked your streets
my spirit entered your houses
your heartbeats were my heart

I climbed to your summits
I mirrored your valleys
your breaths were upon my face
and I knew you all

your joys and pains were mine
your dreams were my dreams
your thoughts my thoughts
your desires my desires

I laughed with your children
and longed with your youth
and laughed and laughed
boundless within you

you all sing and throb and chant
and I beheld you
and loved you
and no distance could intervene

I was like the giant oak
that covered you
and bound you to the earth
and thought to be deathless

but you are only as strong
as the weakest among you
and those small weak deeds
found my frailty

you are like the seasons
though in winter you deny Spring
still, Spring is never offended
and smiles in her drowse

do not say to one another
“He praised us well”
“He saw the good in us”
for you have failed me

your thoughts and memories
are of the ancient days
when a man’s word was his honor
and wise men ruled

in the flame and confusion
you have ceded your might
to the moneyed and the mighty
and towers of power and glory

pass by the fields
where you’ve laid your fathers
and tell me you’ve kept
their bold honor and promise

you will hang your shamed heads
you will tell me the storms
trapped you in your nets
you will say psalms of appeasement

but I tell you with knowledge
that the soarers are also creepers
the believers also doubted
and now you are not free

your spirit no longer envelops
the earth, except as invader
you don’t move with the wind
you speak nebulous words

you no longer see
you no longer hear
you have no regret of your
blindness or that you are deaf

by your silence
you have signaled your captains
that all is well and you bless
the darkness that’s fallen

I have measured you by
your smallest deed and found
you wanting, the ocean once
powerful frail as its foam

with fear for your future
with a heavy, heavy heart
with regret and much love,
I say goodbye

–Jo 2008