The Voyage

Sometimes I wonder about others

when I am on a voyage,

thinking to myself in the silence.

Where do I have to go, how far away,

to lose this incredible burden:

my talent for doing so much harm.

It is not only that I do harm,

but through my neglect the others

shoulder my terrible burden

and go off on their own voyage.

They go their own way, they go my way,

and I am left alone in the silence.

What happens to them in the silence?

They pass ahead into time; is it harm?

Why do I think any way they go is my way?

They are complete minds—they are others.

Yet, we all make the same voyage,

and to be separate is a great burden.

Not to see you as me is a burden,

a painful wall of immense silence

that causes us to go alone on our voyage.

On the other hand, harm

can also be seen in seeing others

exactly as myself. I want my way.

This is why I run or walk away

with my sack, my mysterious burden

which I hide from all the others.

Do you think they know in the silence

that I almost wish to do them harm,

that I am jealous of their voyage?

Do we protect others on their voyage

by making them believe they own their way?

Or could it be that we’re doing harm,

causing them to carry their burden

through an eternity of silence--

a silence that leads each of us to be an other.

On my voyage I’ll remember a burden

that took me away in the silence,

where my harm is equal to others’.

© Julianne Carlile 

1994

You Go On

You go on, not remembering,

or else don’t care, which is the same,

and I think on the lovely ring

you took back, worn by what’s her name.

Nature consoles me; it has heart,

a heart I did not find in you.

Nature will not leave me apart.

Nature, in fact, is just and true.

The shorn grass falls out in my wake,

the swallows follow on my way,

I resolve to make a mistake.

Before I see the boy, I say,

"I love you," and your voice or God’s,

on the summer wind answers, nods.

© Julianne Carlile