The Heart of the Matter
Picture by Wheston. Summer 2018.
“The Heart of the Matter”
I.
Life is short.
I am playing at it—
Unsure how to balance depth
with everyday living.
II.
What can one person do
to make a difference?
For some, it is easier to die waiting.
When at peace, it is wise to prepare.
In standing up, attracting attention, one risks
personal extinction for a greater cause, pray,
or a lesser one.
It’s been said, “The first casualty of war is
Innocence.” Death seldom consumes us for long
lest it prove, or become, personal. We distance
ourselves from atrocities – an adaptive, primordial
mechanism – psychological preservation.
The poet is a passive activist—
observing, recording, hoping to achieve justice by
imbuing moments -- historical and individual -- with
beautification, exactitude, even when approaching
dark subjects—man’s inhumanity to man.
Depending upon the process of christening,
the breaking-in of the heart—fault lines in the ivory tusk
of innocence, destined to be amputated if passing through
this world long enough—there lies something beautiful in
the loss of innocence.
But some go too far inside; allow anger to become them,
lose all sight of the tender heart—perhaps were born out
of cells morphed by cultural and individual hatred.
I fear more the boy who one day grabs his assault weapon,
fed-up with himself, unleashing mayhem upon the innocent
in a vain attempt for retribution—to reclaim the loss of who
he was and what he never had.
Medication—Ritalin, Prozac, Zoloft, Adderall—
any number of FDA approved drugs—sodomized his young,
naked conscience until rawness set in and nothing except
anger made sense.
I fear the boy who one day picks up his assault weapon
more than a gang of extremists long-trained in the execution
of self-annihilation. To desire the death of others is a call
to end one’s own suffering.
A group is easier to understand, whereas the lone,
random assassin proves terrifying. A variable as
harmless as you and me one day; the next, a lost child,
not insane, just trapped. He yearns for a purer state,
a return to innocence by robbing others of their own.
He feels it is not possible—to ever trust again—so he
trusts himself and no one else, unequivocally.
He is no longer afraid, only sad for himself, devoid
of empathy.
He knows not what he does—he thinks he knows.
In the cave of darkness one cannot see his own
hand three inches in front of his face.
The truly blind man does not know he is blind.
III.
I am no one. Or I am everyone.
At any moment I can be taken out of the equation.
This is equally motivating—don’t waste a single moment—
and beautifully disquieting. I, too, must die. I just
don’t believe it.
I examine my heart. Confess my blindness at times.
Am grateful my suffering has smoothed me, made me
more gentle, desirous of understanding myself
and others as opposed to eternal darkness—
Raw discord—a petrification of the soul condemned
to a self-erected Hell.
A journalist is an active participant.
The poet doesn’t go out on assignment;
He knows when the time is right the task will find him,
pull him out into the street before dawn—hold him
at gunpoint—a white sheet of paper on his desk—dawn—
His pen, the rifle—and demand a reckoning before nightfall.
He is not writing for the satisfaction of himself.
He is writing for the Ages of Time.
His soul is his greatest weapon.
In the wake of tragedy, he unsheaths
Its voice.
by Wheston Chancellor Grove // April 2018
