She’d Rise Again (A Poem) – The Writings of Tom Grasso

I heard what she said,

Before she fell,

Before the world crumbled around her,

She was, for me,

The calm before the storm.

The placid sea churning with uncertainty.

I heard a faint sigh,

A slight gasp peer through the crack in her lips,

And she uttered,

What I heard lifted me from my doldrums,

A single ray of light that poured through the clouds,

And I knew she would return.

Then a single drop splashed hard upon my forehead,

Thunder rolled as she tumbled toward the ground,

I heard her growl in the moment that she fell,

I heard her swear in the second she let go,

Her words still echo in the canyons of my soul,

As I felt her blood trickle down my skin.

There is nothing like the sight,

Of a warrior losing to her demons.

There are no words,

Like those she spoke to me that day.

Yet in the moment of that surrender,

In the moment her walls turned to dust

And her sword faltered her fiercest undertaking,

The world

Knew

She’d rise again.