Failure
when failure and death and further instructions
finally are forgotten from your senses
when miles are to go, the stones begin to glow,
and you’ve for sustenance only breath
when finally exposure takes you, naked and exhaling,
and knowing is a feeling almost physical
listen… the whole world is speaking— can you hear
……..those trees, these stones, the sun’s light, the quiet?
……
This poem is from the chapbook The Windswept Verses by Mark Kaplon (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/the-windswept-verses-by-mark-kaplon/
Mark Kaplon teaches literature and Hawaiian culture on the Big Island of Hawai‘i. His poems have appeared in dozens of journals— Canary, Hawai‘i Pacific Review, and Lilliput Review among them— and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His first chapbook, Song of Rainswept Sand, was published in 2014 by Finishing Line Press.
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