Capsized (The Great Dismal Swamp)

*(explanation & background at end)

It hurts to read this today against this backdrop of quiet
Only the rain that rattles the window
The graphite smooth spinning of the fanblades
The rhythm of the clock on the wall as the seconds fall

How many years ago and still the memory is here
Something that’s nothing like a word on a page
Can bring the feelings back
A few notes from a lonesome guitar that echoes in the stairwell
Like words from an overheard conversation
That seem to apply, though they drop in unannounced and uninvited
My fingers play the notes of the song
My lips form words that I never thought to speak
My hands grip the pen as it scribes the terms
Without searching for words, how does this happen and why?

Because they exist just barely submerged
Under brackish tanic water
Under February ice broken in a capsize
Up from Lake Drummond in 1979

While the minute hand changes, and the hours too
And time continues on into the endless
There is something that stays stopped in place
With every such event there is a person
Without the momentum to make it beyond
Until the concussion of a word or a sound or a feeling
Brings a ghost of that person to the surface
Only long enough for a single pale glance
The breath of remembrance against my cheek

The loudest sound in the world today
While the soft steady rain rattles the window
Against this backdrop of quiet
It hurts to read this today, and to remember

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Ah, memories... I wrote this after something brought up two simultaneous remembrances, flashes of deep hidden memory of two events from my childhood. Both events had a deep impact on me and the two became intertwined in the above peice of writing.

Age 9, capsized in the freezing black waters of The Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia. I thought we were going to die and we well could have.

Age 11, my 'girlfriend' Rose being murdered (along with her mother) by her step father right after I saw them that night.
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