the underpinnings

dissecting a difficult experience

I sat experiencing worry-with-a-specific-focus last night. Unable to think through and thus resolve the object of my anxiety, I wrote through just the emotional component of the experience. When I came out the other end, was done writing the poem, I felt very much relieved.

The particular situation itself didn’t seem to be important, or the relevant aspect of the anxiety. The FEELING itself was the center of the difficulty.

—

the underpinnings of anxiety

symphony of hidden light

in cast iron reliquary

hot coal buried

alive through centuries

crossing sunken stars on its path downward

through earth, stone, protozoa

a clergy of worms will discover

one morning, moist and slow

the tomb of this abandoned sun

worship and work are one

they dig shafts for posterity

for progeny

for love that cannot be distinguished

from molding dirt

and the dignity

of basic existence