Monologue, by Cathy Wittmeyer

Death on the Road, by Käthe Kollwitz (Germany) 1934

Monologue

             Where has aspiration flown to?
The cold penetrates my sole-worn shoes.

I too am soul-worn. What to make of it?
             I know no one left living who hasn’t

             already deserted this throbbing world.
The birds have abandoned the sky,

grey with smoke, & there are no more
             trees to nest in & the water—where did it

             go when the brooks flowed with blood?
It doesn’t ripple over river rock & it’s

silent too. Thrumming silence. Except
            for the groan—that rumbling tone that

tremors—a bass drum in my chest.
The cold hurts the bones of my brain.

I tried. I did. & none of it remains.

Cathy Wittmeyer

Cathy Wittmeyer hosts the Word to Action retreat in the Alps and edited the upcoming anthology: Eden is a Backyard: Climate poems from Word to Action from Eupolino Verlag. Her poems explore climate wreckage and human frailty. Her work has appeared in Isele Magazine, Superpresent, Tangled Locks Journal and Book of Matches among others. For more on this engineer/lawyer, mom and poet from Buffalo, NY, see https://cathywittmeyer.com