“The Endless Day” by Danil Rudoy is a 28-line rhymed poem from Love Is Poetry, dated March 14th, 2019. Seven quatrains move through tension at the office, self-blame, silence, shame, forgiveness and a final recognition that renewed hope has already begun.
The Endless Day
She’s at the office, as always: dizzy,
Of visions full, and of sleep bereft.
Last night, again, I was very busy:
Why does it feel like I’d never left?
She’s vexed with me: more, perhaps, than ever.
Did I deserve it? I bet I did.
To try your best is no small endeavor…
Should I stop trying it? God forbid!
Her silence slashes me like a razor;
I crumble, hit with internal pain.
It’s but the color of my own blazer
That keeps me somewhat alive and sane.
Her eyes align at my nose’s center.
I hear a thought as her lips grow tense:
“You’re such a misery as a mentor,
All that you taught me is self-defense.”
She’s angry still, but behind is fear.
I look away, overwhelmed with shame.
My mind is hazed, but the truth is clear:
No matter what, I’m the one to blame.
And then she speaks, and her quiet kindness
Turns my despondency on a dime.
I’m done, for once, with my wicked blindness:
She just forgave me another time.
The wafts of bliss in my soul are rising.
One day, I know, I will get it right…
And then I jubilate, realizing:
That endless day has begun tonight!
March 14th, 2019
Guilt, forgiveness and renewed hope
The poem begins in an ordinary workplace and quickly turns that setting into an emotional chamber. Silence becomes a razor, the speaker hears accusation in another person’s tense expression, and self-blame reaches its sharpest form in the admission that he is “the one to blame.”
Forgiveness changes the poem’s movement in the sixth quatrain. Quiet kindness reverses despondency, and the closing stanza lifts from shame toward confidence that the speaker can eventually “get it right.” The title arrives in the final line as a temporal image of renewal already underway.
Critical reading
A detailed critical reading of “The Endless Day” on Prose & Poetry examines guilt, silence, self-blame, forgiveness, office imagery, rhyme, tonal change and the poem’s final transformation of night into an “endless day.”
Related reading
Read Take Me, or Not, then continue with Chain of Lies. The wider English poems by Danil Rudoy page places both works inside the collection’s sequence.
Text and citation
Copyright © Danil Rudoy. The poem is published here as the author’s canonical text. Short excerpts may be quoted for criticism, scholarship, teaching and literary discussion with attribution to Danil Rudoy and a link to this page. Full reproduction requires separate permission.