Reflections on Hela
by Gary DeJong
Like halogen upon black ice
Is the reflection of those earlier days
When her calls went unanswered.
I would have thought I was to walk this road alone,
Forever believing myself contented,
Yet my footsteps still sound
Like they fall alone
As her tread falls silent
In this tapestry of things
I would have once found terrifying,
This gracing of silk and chewed bone,
Only one thing is left standing
To give me unease:
Have I gone mad enough to accept this love?
Or have I been mad enough to create it?
Is she really mere poetry?
This woman's personality drawn like a curtain
Over the failure of our understanding,
A glyph of the all-gone and ever-ended
To give semblance and song
To the harshest of human limitations.
On this new side of sanity,
The question no longer matters.
For all that she may be mere analogy,
I feel the illusion of myself
Is of no different nature.
