My Bones Hold a Stillness

A Poem

The world reverberates all around me yet has no effect because my bones hold a stillness

Deep inside of me there is a calmness, a form of serenity birthed from loss I am eternally still

I don’t have to move because all else does so I stay centered on my core and on my self

I look inward for strength I feel my bones dry Still like a lonely tree alone in a field present, unforgotten

My bones hold a stillness that only I understand cloaked in skin protected by flesh but still nonetheless

This poem was inspired by a passage in the book of poems, The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath. I find myself highlighting words or passages that move me every time I read, no matter what I am reading. When I find the highlight that projects to a poem, I don’t read the source again before I write, I just allow the nerve to be touched. And then I spill my words.

A snippet from page 262 of The Collected Poems, from the poem, Sheep in Fog, from 1962-1963, where I got my inspiration:

A flower left out My bones hold a stillness, the far Fields melt my heart.

They threaten To let me through to a heaven Starless and fatherless, a dark water.

© Jonathan Greene 2020

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