Wilderness

The tide turns:
this wilderness is my domain,
transcending images
to ascertain
a single truth
amidst the lies;

there are no lies,
only whens and whys;

We don't belong
this family of I's,
We live to die
in peace and strife,
Our tragic lives
are alibis.

We fear to seek
the deeper still,
in case we fall
and falling fail,
to fulfil the telling
of our tale.

© Shaista Tayabali, 2011
for dverse poetry prompt 'wild';
Matisse, 1916, The Piano Lesson (Time intersects in this composition; in the open living-room window of Matisse’s house at Issy-les-Moulineaux, outside Paris, his son Pierre practices the piano. A candle sits on the instrument, illuminating a triangle of lawn. In the bottom left corner is a representation of one of Matisse’s sculptures, Decorative Figure (1908), while the severe “teacher” in the opposite corner is actually a representation of the painting Woman on a High Stool (1914). Precise geometry and elusive illusion!)