Desolation Wood

 

Desolation Wood 

(A lone voice whispers)

There's a place I sometimes see when all seems dark in my own Selva Oscura.

 Whenever I feel weak in my deepest, darkest of dreams.

 A sparse place where the skylarks and robins no longer gather to sing while nearby rivers empty, deflowered by mountain streams and sin.

A low place beyond the cry of morning delights or the shriek of the lone rooster announcing the start of a new day.

After a long night.

 A place where darkness plays as old photos litter the way and ominous shadows stand up straight and sway.

A cathedral of tired old memories and barge boat journeys between A to B.

 Where no living creature breathes any air as far as the eyes can see. Then I see you.

Standing, wearing dirty old black shoes and torn blue jeans. Wearing a black coat in The Great In-Between.

 

 Looking at me with all the sweet anger you can give, but as my dead spirit guides once told me as I lived.

Channeling what Mark 11:25 said:

 “… If you hold anything against anyone, forgive them so that your Father in heaven may forgive you.” 

Is that why I still see you, a reoccurring ghost, when I sometimes dream after all these years in the Great In-Between?

Where I'm left constantly wondering?

Who's blessed enough to forgive who?

Me or even just you?

Or are you just my soul's only true follower in Desolation Wood, like a reborn Mary Magdalene?

Or am I caught in a relentless dream sent by the Nazarene or the cunning forces of the mephistophelean?

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

A poem about carrying someone into the darkest inner places where the speaker doesn't know whether forgiveness would heal or destroy what little truth they have left.

By not knowing whether they are being called toward grace—or punished by memory.

And until that is resolved, they remain together forever in The Great In-Between.

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