By: Sawyer Olson

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead,
And memory, too, holds its claim.
Your voice hums Superior, where the iron ore fled,
A ship lost to the storm’s cruel name.

Memory, too, holds its claim,
As I drift in the waves of my brain.
A ship lost to the storm’s cruel name,
And the weight of the words you once sang.

I drift in the waves of my brain,
Where the gales of November still roar.
The weight of the words you once sang,
Anchors me here to the shore.

The gales of November still roar,
And the wreck lies deep in the cold.
Anchored here to the shore,
I wonder if the past can be told.

The wreck lies deep in the cold,
But the lake never gives up her dead.
I wonder if the past can be told,
Or if silence is better instead.

The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead,
But memory, too, holds its claim.
Is silence better instead,
Or do I face the wreck and its name?

Wonder

Is wonder woven into our souls,
Or a spark we strike against the dark?
It rises like a question unbidden,
A child’s hand reaching for the moon,
A scientist peering through a glass,
A poet gazing at the anfractuous sea.

What is it for, this endless ache,
To know, to touch, to name?
Does it build bridges or burn them?
Does it fill the world with light,
Or leave us groping in the shadows
Of all we cannot understand?

Wonder is the first step, they say,
The seed of every discovery.
But it is also the last,
The silence after the answer,
The emptiness where the question lived.
Is it a gift, the restless hunger,
Or a curse we cannot shed?
It drives us to the stars,
But leaves us stranded here,
On a planet too small for our dreams.

And yet, without it,
Would we still be human?
Would we still be alive?
Or would we be stones,
Unmoved by the wind,
Unshaken by the rain?

Perhaps wonder is both–
The fire and the ash,
The question and the silence,
The wound and the bandage.
It is what makes us,
What breaks us,
And what puts us back together,
Again,
And again,
And again.

Dinner for Two

“Still hungry?” I hear a whisper in my ear
As the devil on my shoulder grins.
He offers a platter of new promises–
Savory illusions to devour in secret.

“Why choke on old vows,” he hisses,
“When you can dine on certainty I serve?”
His tempting words shimmer
Like honey glistening on bone.

I clutch the memory of her voice:
“I’ll love you forever.”
My heart gnaws at the echo,
Stomach rumbling in doubt.

The devil leans in, fork in hand,
“You can eat your fill of forgetting,
Taste the sweetness of letting go.
No more hollow days at her empty table.”

I close my eyes, replacing
His sinister grin with her radiant smile.
The ache is bitter on my tongue,
But her promise still smells like garnish to my soul.

He snorts in mock pity,
Sliding the plate nearer–
The feast of a “better” future.
I hesitate, starving for relief.

In the hush between heartbeats,
My faith in her stirs anew,
A hunger I can’t quite abandon.
I push away his polished platter,
And swallow another night of yearning,
As the devil snickers, “See you tomorrow.”

In My Sky at Dawn

Based on Poem XVI from Pablo Neruda’s
“Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair”

In my sky at dawn, you rise like a tender cloud,
Lingering at the edges of my sleep, softening the crisp air.

You are the first gold of morning that illuminates the silence,
Filling my hands with warmth, holding me in the certainty of your breath.

In this fragile hour, your voice is the hush of new light,
A gentle invitation shimmering across the open fields of my heart.

With you, the horizon expands, every hidden shadow dissolving
Into the stillness of your presence – A vast, bright promise awakening me.

And in that trembling clarity, I find that simply being with you
Is dawn unto itself, an endless morning flooding my sky.

Hollow

He waits, a hollow figure carved from oak,
Slowly rotting from the inside out.
The beautiful world filled with feeling,
But trapped in his mind, he endures without.

The hours blur, time drowns itself,
No start, no end, no moments to keep.
He wonders if dusk will bring the dawn,
Or if it matters when you’re half asleep.

A flower in the distance calls his name,
The single thread that pulls him from the haze.
He wonders how long she’s been here,
Feeling her warmth, basking in sunlit rays.

Her laughter spills, a familiar delight,
The anthem of every forgotten dream.
Stirring the leaves, casting a dance out of dust,
And for a breath, the hollows don a shimmering gleam.

The walls return, the elegant stars fade away,
He stares at her wistfully, but can’t find a trace.
Left with a sliver of hope on which he sustains,
Will she ever return and free him from this place?