May 26, 2014 8:42 pm
The Overachiever Lugging Rocks
I carry rocks,
which is the kind of work
I always think I like,
only I find these rocks
so heavy that I end up dragging them
with my right arm,
which I think of as my strong one
though it isn’t truly, I can actually lug them
with my left,
in the same way that I think of you inside
as the true me,
the one who has all these things
she must do=
things she lives
to achieve–
only she doesn’t actually live at all
just as my right arm,
pretending dominance,
lets the rocks drag, relying on the strength
of canvas bag and the soft slope
of grassy hill, the sun so hot
that the green
buzzes.
Someday I wonder
whether that you inside, which right this minute
I think of as “her,”
but is also me always, the one who wants
so much,
will accept the one
that just likes to lug rocks,
that is just happy
getting them to a garden
where they will fit with whatever
is there already, making a place
for themselves, as large rocks do, some kind
of order.
*****************************
A draft poem of sorts. Yes, a bit weird. About the divided self. And rock-lugging.
Above is a photo I took today that doesn’t exactly go with the poem, but that a like–a snake between two large rock stairs.
I am linking this to With Real Toads open link night.
Posted by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry
Tags: Carrying Rocks with a Busy Mind, manicddaily, Snake in the rocks, The Overachiever Lugging Rocks, What's wrong with my right arm, Whoa--a snake in there
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its some interesting self talk…the last stanza is the strongest in my opinion…facing that dichotomy, almost creating a dialogue of understanding between them…
By brian miller on May 26, 2014 at 9:07 pm
Thanks, Brian . It’s a very odd poem. K.
>
By ManicDdaily on May 26, 2014 at 9:16 pm
sneaky snake. for some reason (though it’s nothing like it) reminds me of Adrian Belew’s “Elephant Talk”. ~
By grapeling on May 27, 2014 at 1:07 am
Lugging the rocks is a wonderful metaphor–for choice, obsession, balance, achievement, and th many necessary or even merely representational tasks we set ourselves, or have set for us among many by circumstance, and which we pick out as what we ‘must’ do. I like the divided self that seems to function fine, yet longs for the unity of real purpose, real self undivided. I wonder if that state can even exist for most non-saints or bodhisatvas. The final stanza –very satisfying.
By hedgewitch on May 27, 2014 at 9:20 am
Enjoyed this, Karin … glad the photo isn’t a Rorschach test. Smiles.
By Helen on May 27, 2014 at 11:04 pm
Got the divided self idea straight away. Aren’t we all a bit like that? And as we live our lives we shed layers and leave them behind. Ghosts to be picked up by others.
Greetings from London.
By A Cuban In London on May 29, 2014 at 3:46 am