elysia's walk
for Coby
C Ra McGuirt
elysia, girl of my village; daughter i lost
now&forever not seventeen
on this, the day of your brief birth
to sixteen years of stolen life,
your village begins to walk for you
as i, its poet, keep my word
to walk for you on darker roads
& longer ones. i go alone
though never meaning, elysia,
to turn my back upon your crowd -
i walk with them essentially,
invisibly, although twice as real
as was the cold hard night concrete
on which unbalanced terror spilled
your precious blood to make this poem.
i vow to remember your sixteen years,
to count all the years now left to you
by god through me. elysia,
you came strangely&suddenly in mine
through senselessness,&something real
inside of me you came to grow,
& now you're home, elysia,
so long as i should have a home.
it's strange to think that had we passed
in halls we shared apart in time
you'd have rolled your eyes at me
& scolded my lack of school spirit,
just before i rolled my own
& stomped off down the hall to write
more bittersweet meaningful angry young poems,
& to play at my angry young music...
who are you, girl of my village?
how did you come to be my child?
suddenly, i've lost desire
to tread this paper path alone,
within these walls,&in these tears
shed solely for my mortal self;
elysia, come walk with me,
to the start of the dark at the end of the page;
i can't say i truly fear
the lesson which may find me there,
but you have passed more recently;
help me learn. be my school friend
in this present school of light,
through afternoon,&fall of dusk,
beyond,
in distant school
of night.
