Reflections on Hela

by Gary DeJong

Like halogen upon black ice

Is the reflection of those earlier days

When her calls went unanswered.

I would have thought I was to walk this road alone,

Forever believing myself contented,
Yet my footsteps still sound

Like they fall alone

As her tread falls silent

In this tapestry of things

I would have once found terrifying,

This gracing of silk and chewed bone,

Only one thing is left standing

To give me unease:

Have I gone mad enough to accept this love?
Or have I been mad enough to create it?

Is she really mere poetry?

This woman's personality drawn like a curtain

Over the failure of our understanding,

A glyph of the all-gone and ever-ended

To give semblance and song

To the harshest of human limitations.

On this new side of sanity,

The question no longer matters.
For all that she may be mere analogy,

I feel the illusion of myself

Is of no different nature.