LAMENTATIONS 

The poet rejoices in a rare freedom that history grants, but, as he widens the freedom and pushes it back from expectations he finds a world too problematical to understand his freedom.

Ah world, carried away by the problems that settle on its brain; that drift downward like the ash of a volcano that damages youth and drags it to the realm it fears, so, the poet is in a quandary. Does he play the clown to shake the people free of their problems or does he see life through the problematical nature and offer a vision of hope?

What is a vision of hope if he is ignorant of the problem? And, if he is bogged down by the nature of problems how can he find the strength to effect hope?

The energies of the man are engaged in a struggle with the backdrop of a colorful city, where the madmen roam free exciting the air and creating vast metaphors for the surprised poet. The metaphor of the madman zigzag through the few buildings, off the bodies of jet aircraft, off the houses. He loves the freedom that is able to grow away from the constraint of power and authority.

The city revels in it.

"He will be free of the world for a couple of years," the city seems to say. It will let him loose through the straight avenues filled with happy and sad women. It will sweep him past the poor huddled behind packages and run-aways with their sloppy dogs. Piercing laughter of the young not yet in the world. The days are carried on pressure-less moments like the ballons at the children's park that sail toward the high windows of some modest building that has no concern for the dreams of youth. Ah city, you trap! You concrete prison! Some of the inmates even threatened to kill the poet if he stepped over a line. City that consumes but does not replenish is abandoned, in the end, for the lapping of waves along the ocean.

© 2001 David Eide. All rights reserved.