Poetry
Exploring the relationship between self and nature, and the tension between memory and impermanence.
To Survive
We are born into madness.
To breathe is to be swept away
by the storms,
to feel the jagged edges of existence
etch their marks deep
into our bones.
Suffering lingers, a shadow
darkening our days,
pressing sorrow into our brows.
We taste its bitterness—
tears for every trial, every tragedy,
for every breath lost to the wind.
Yet still, we hold on
through the silent hours,
like a fragile ember
refusing to fade.
To survive is to honor the struggle,
to find meaning in the weight we bear.
To survive is to gather
the scattered fragments of hope
and string them together,
fragile pearls on a frayed necklace.
©Sam Aureli
Published in Opol
Photo: The Wrath of the Seas by Ivan Aivazovsky, 1886 (Wikimedia Commons)
Blue Heron
Careful not to stir the stillness,
moving like a prayer among
reeds, the blue heron wades
through the marsh. Each pause,
a kind of listening. Each dip,
a gleam—a fish caught,
or the sigh of water exhaling.
Untroubled, it stands, slate feathers
lifting slightly in the breeze,
a flag of persistence.
Life is this: a slow stalk,
waiting without cursing the wait,
neck stretched toward what
might be. Sometimes a silver
flash. Sometimes, only silence.
And still we stand, ankles in cold,
learning the grace of what comes
or what does not. The heron
knows, eyes like dark stars,
folding its wings to try again.
©Sam Aureli
First published in Humana Obscura, Issue 14
Photo courtesy of Leslie Waugh, used with permission
Why We Keep Going
Because the robin keeps singing
even after the branch
has bent beneath her.
Because a poem
can be a steady hand on the back
when no one else stays.
Because grief does not knock,
and neither do we.
We just arrive
with whatever language we have left.
I write
not to be heard by thousands
but to find the one
standing barefoot in a dim kitchen,
cup cooling in her hand,
reading by the light
of what I almost didn’t say.
Because silence is heavier
than the weight of being misunderstood.
Because sometimes,
a poem is the only place
where truth doesn’t tremble.
You ask, why bother.
I ask, what else is there
that even briefly
makes the heart
recognize itself?
©Sam Aureli
Published in Everscribe Magazine
Photo by Ehud Neuhaus on Unsplash