Dead Weight
Memory is an anchor dragging the earth
behind me, uprooting flowers and gardens,
scaring dogs and small children with the clanging
of its rusted chains -- and I willingly pull
this dead weight with me through every slow step
of every day, complaining when it crushes the furniture
or drags me to the bottom of a lake I walked into
under a full moon in the middle of winter,
wondering with each step why I left the shore.
I don't remember agreeing to this bargain,
to accepting the chains, yet I covet the weight
keeping me in place -- so hard to dig the key
out of hiding and release the lock, walk away
light as a newborn from all I have done, the suffering
I have seen, all the faces of those I have known, so
hard to cut myself loose from the pain and loss
of those years with which I condemn myself.
I need to be anchored, I tell myself, to be bound
by all I have known, to wear my accountability
in plain view, this dead weight chained to my waist --
and I fear the weightlessness of cutting the links,
unlocking that lock, the freedom to be a new man
in each fertile moment -- I cower before this hope,
this mysterium tremendum, the unbearable gift
of freedom I crave with each passing breath.
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