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THIRTY-SEVEN BURNT-OUT INCENSE STUBS
by W. Mahlon PurdinTHIRTY-SEVEN BURNT-OUT
INCENSE STUBS
When I look at them
They seem so important,
So fatal, so inevitable
Proof of a once-a-decade migration
Of a dreaded plague that
Visited me without real warning.
Oh, I saw it coming. I could feel it.
But still, it's always shocking
In its penetration, in its depth of hurt.
It brings back memories of the dead
Of the times when I said nothing
When I was weaker than I am now.
But never when I was strong.
There are no stubs for those days.
Incense burns sweet and its aroma
Soothes me. It seems to float
Around me, like an aura of good.
It covers so much.
I look at them now. They seem
Insignificant. But I can't throw them out.
If I drop one I search for it frantically.
I remember each one. Each day.
I remember the flush and pain.
I remember singing the highest notes.
Playing the hardest songs.
Relishing life like that boy in Kansas.
Regretting it all like a bloody war
I wish I had run away from.
They mean nothing to anyone else.
Thirty-seven burnt-out incense stubs.
But to me, the whole world
Depends on each one. 06/21/2013 Posted on 07/02/2013
Copyright © 2026 W. Mahlon Purdin
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Rob Littler on 08/17/13 at 03:22 PM I think of the actual end of the stub, where surely the burnt end still issues a faint offering of smoke...and of that smoke, what the incense stick has become, the smoke from those days, each day, in fact, what comfort is there in that smoke being in the Universe around you still? |
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