Obsidian Promises

By Al Konda

In river-hush where moonlight braids a silver, secret thread,

I speak a vow in broken dawns, in words that taste of dread;

Not fear of you, but fear of time—its slow, unmaking teeth—

So let my breathing be the knot that holds your name beneath.

 

Above, the night is ink and glass, a wide obsidian wave;

Your syllables—bright runes I wear, the only song I crave.

Each morning lifts its flaming rim; I meet it where you shine,

And lay my myth upon the roots of some old, listening pine.

 

When the sink won’t drain and dawn comes wrong and thin,

And yesterday’s shirt still smells like where I’ve been,

I almost choose the easier, quieter lie—

That wanting less is wisdom, that vows can wait to dry.

 

In every pulse that kicks my ribs, a hidden truth is said:

The world calls love a passing thing; I call it law instead.

For you are not a fleeting star that burns and falls from sight—

You are the pole that steadies seas and teaches winds their right.

 

So if the heavens spend their gold and constellations die,

If rivers learn a different path and even mountains fly,

Let fate come with its tidal hands, its storms, its prophecy—

Your heart will be my compass still, to steer my destiny.

 

And when no witness waits but ash and ordinary days,

When even wonder dulls its edge and miracles grow sparse,

I will not speak this vow aloud—I’ll keep it in my ways:

The way I turn toward you still, unchanged, unasked, unharsh.

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There are vows we speak to be heard, and vows we speak because silence would betray us.

Obsidian Promises was written at the crossing where devotion meets erosion—where love is not threatened by distance or doubt, but by time itself. Not by fear of the other, but by the slow, ordinary wearing-down that teaches us how easily we justify less.

The poem begins in ritual and night, where vows feel ancient and durable. But it does not remain there. It descends deliberately—into a sink that won’t drain, a morning that arrives thin and wrong, a moment when fatigue offers a quieter lie: that restraint is wisdom, that promises can wait.

This is the true test of fidelity.

Not catastrophe.

Not temptation dressed as beauty.

But convenience.

The heart of this poem is not its cosmic language, but its fracture—where myth is interrupted by the ordinary. Where devotion nearly fails for reasons too small to dignify, and therefore too honest to ignore.

What survives that moment is not grand speech, but practice. The vow is kept not by declaration, but by direction—by the way one turns, again and again, toward the same presence, unchanged.

Obsidian Promises argues that love is not a feeling to be preserved, but a law to be lived. And that the strongest promises are not spoken aloud, but carried into days that no longer feel miraculous.

© Al Konda · The Poetry Elite

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Literary Analysis — Obsidian Promises

1. Obsidian as Moral Material

Obsidian is volcanic glass—born of fire, hardened instantly, sharp and reflective. It is not decorative stone; it cuts. The poem uses obsidian not as atmosphere, but as ethic: clarity without softness, beauty without comfort.

Night is “ink and glass,” the vow reflective and dangerous. What is promised here cannot be handled casually.

2. Time as the True Antagonist

The poem’s primary fear is not loss of love, but loss to time—“its slow, unmaking teeth.” This shifts the axis from romantic anxiety to existential endurance. Love must outlast erosion, not conflict.

3. The Grounded Fracture

The pivotal stanza—the sink, the stale shirt, the easier lie—breaks the mythic register on purpose. This is where the poem earns its authority.

The vow is not tested by fate or gods, but by fatigue and self-justification. This moment prevents the poem from becoming ornamental myth and makes it lived ritual.

4. Law Versus Sentiment

“I call it law instead” is the poem’s ethical spine. Love is framed not as feeling, but as binding order—something that governs action even when emotion thins.

5. Silence as Fidelity

The final refusal to speak the vow aloud completes the poem’s arc. Speech would cheapen what practice sustains. The promise lives in behavior—in orientation, not proclamation.

Conclusion

Obsidian Promises is a poem about fidelity after glamour. It rejects spectacle in favor of endurance, replacing romantic display with moral gravity. Its power lies not in what it declares, but in what it survives.

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© Al Konda · The Poetry Elite