After Words Poem by Suzanne Hayasaki

Sometimes I sit silently.
I let the last words sift and settle,
My mind whispering to itself:
Be still. This is no time to think.
I close my eyes and let the book sink
Deeper into my consciousness
That mere words could dig.

The book begins to speak to the others
Its protagonist begins to blur with another.
The Stranger and the Fireman bend to the same intent
Exploding with the same emotions to separate endings.
But their rise and the fall form the same jagged line in my mind.

I see writers facing the same frustrations
Looking at the world as if through a two-way mirror
Pounding on the glass, trying to be heard,
Scribbling in the vacuum of some dingy room,
Sure they are the only ones who perceive
What has alarmed so many others
In so many separate times and cultures.

And yet each story, for all its repetition of form,
For all the familiarity of conflicts and problems left unresolved,
With all its archetypes thrown into confrontations
With the same motivations and the same outcomes,
Feels unique as we read it, as we breathe it in,
As we listen to its characters' private thoughts
As we hover above in some vague outer space
And view the action that takes place within us.

And when our eyes have fallen off the edge
Of the last word of the last sentence
We find ourselves adrift between reading and reality
Clinging to what has instantly become the past
Unwilling to reenter the present.

It is in these in-between moments
That everything just-read is freshest
But everything past-read revives
To dance with its new companions
In the ballroom of my own creative mind.