Diane Wilbon Parks

The War Within

What they cannot see are the damaged thoughts
punctuated in the dark,  the sweet erosion amplified, 
and the salt of silence, broken, 
 
It all implodes, and blossoms again, in the infinite 
landscapes and riverbeds of our minds, a wilderness 
running through itself like tumbleweed, 

The quiet chaos, the war within flowering the darkness, 
distorted as silk sheets raised above the breastbone of a 
mattress,	
the heavy things they leave behind,
we cannot lift in the dark,

The sacred interruptions of love and acceptance and sorrow 
are the bright shadows that still hold church in us, 

The mind is a vulnerable thing stretched and bent, a nomad 
of soft voices clothed in  black dresses,  echoing the silent 
shells that cannot hear themselves break open at night,  

We cannot control the unfurling thoughts, no more than we 
can control the disruptive greed of yellow irises, stitching their 
roots in the tender earth, spreading their seedlings across 
ageless abstraction. There are no boundaries here, only the
sound of hope drumming the earth, as it paces back and forth. 

Who is tending the wild horses traversing the uneven
grasslands shaking loose in our heads?

When can we remove the pestilence from  the open 
fields of our defenseless mind?

The mind is a vulnerable thing, stretched and bent, a nomad 
of soft voices clothed in  black dresses,  echoing the  silent 
shells that cannot hear themselves break open at night,  

And if we become dislocated from the frayed edges of 
erupting thoughts, and locked inside the hems of our own 
bodies,  let the flesh of our papers write us as unfinished songs.

Copyright 2025 Diane Wilbon Parks 

Bio:

Diane Wilbon Parks is a visual poet and artist; she was brought in as an Expert Consultant to the National Trust for Historic Preservation through a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, and has a permanent installation of one of her poems and artwork at the Patuxent Research Refuge, North Tract in Laurel, MD.  Diane is a USAF Veteran and Sr. IT Program Manager. She resides in Maryland with her family.  

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