Jedediah
Winter, 2010: I have no memory of writing this poem, nor can I figure out why it is titled as it is.
I sought some kind of justice in this land;
Some way to settle, lay to rest, my ghosts.
But I found only swollen fear and shame.
The stones cried out for blood
And to their calls were added many human voices too:
All sounds protested that the darkness lay
In someone else, or something else besides
That blackened and corrupted heart of man.
Those we called guilty claimed the bottle’s wrath,
Protested that our justice was misplaced,
That Satan’s lips had kissed their own
And all the rest was silence.
For those who watched in glee as bottoms fell,
(Revenge and Justice woven into ropes
About the necks of guilty and weak men,
Of men who’d let the struggle slip away
And given over that part to a sadness—
For sadness can replace a thirst for truth
And this becomes a darkness we all hate)
For them, this was the only thing they knew;
The only thing that brought into their hearts
Some pittance of a peace with how things were
Because a man was foolish, drunk, or mad
And used god-given power to destroy
In one sheer cry of grief and pain and ache.
And now, as I look back, I am afraid…
For what I did in grief and rage and drink
(Both early, in my own, and late, in that of others;
As if to find some way to stall the truth
That nothing I had done had stemmed a tide)
To fill an empty place with dark revenge
Which to true justice was a poor corruption,
Has left me seeing my head in each noose.
O God, that there were mercy for us too!
That something, somewhere, might begin to work
And turn our madness, sorrow, pain, and fear
Back to those things that these have fallen from.
That darkness might be blotted out by light.
That that one strand of justice (gleaming still and silver)
Might be taken out from our revenge
And hung about our necks
In testament to what we strove to find.
Next week I hope to have a new poem, written mostly this calendar year—it’s very nearly ready. I’ve become a better poet over the past 15 years here, so why not