The Drummer

[ninanevermore]

I've been surrounded by a lot of grieving people of late. Since Grief and I are old acquaintances, if not exactly friends, I've written my share on the subject.

Grief is not a single emotion, it's a whole package of experiences. Until you've been through it, reached out to touch a person and only touched an empty spot where that person used to be, there is no explaining it.

This is an old piece that I was reworking today. I like it better now, it's more polished than the version I found in a notebook this afternoon. It's about the aspect of grief that is frustration.




The Drummer

Life goes on a little slower
now that I must play it without you,
beat by beat by beat.

I want someone to hit with these sticks,
I want to demand another chance
with better weapons to fight with.

Because I couldn't win this battle
armed only with a drum at your bedside;
as hard as I played,
I couldn't keep you from falling.

I drummed with all my strength
to beat back the grasp of death:
don't give don't give don't give in.

I held your battle-scarred hands,
I tried to keep up moral
for your fight against the treachery
of a body wasting from the inside
I kept up the tempo of
too soon too soon too soon to go.

But I knew the futility of the effort
even as I fought, even as I played that rhythm,
I know I know I know
that I'm not the first drummer
to break my sticks in frustration.

I've never walked through a graveyard
that wasn't littered
with broken drumsticks.




-Nina Erickson
September 1991
©2005

Comments

[ignusfaatus.livejournal.com]

reading that made me feel it.