..since I’ve written much poetry.Writing poetry is something I tend to do in the grip of strong emotion – and god knows I’m there now – but my skills are rusty at best.
Here’s a raw draft I produced of one, trying to grasp the parameters of that raw kind of grief which doesn’t seem to be diminshing or shifting, just stalled in place like a malevolent storm that’s stuck RIGHT overhead as a Cat 5 Hurricane and is still blowing debris about even after it’s already destroyed everything on ground zero below.
In time, maybe, I will regain the ability that I had where I could lay hold of words and make them dance to a tune I dictated to them. But right now – in the throes of that unhealed grief – I’m barely able to touch them, let alone arrange them, or make them do anything they don’t want to do. So you’ll have to forgive poetry for trying to measure up to that – but writing poetry is possibly the only thing that a wounded writer’s soul can bring to bear, the only weapon I have left to me.
So – if you’ve ever lost someone you loved – family, or friend, or pet – or even lost a life you treasured and had to rebuild it from scratch all over again – I call you my people. I’m sorry this isn’t polished but it may never be – that isn’t what it is for. Perfection isn’t a measure for the poetry of grief.
I LIVE IN A PLACE WHERE TIME
I live in a place where time has gone feral – moments crawl by
In what feels like months, or years;
And centuries pass malevolently in the time it takes
For an eye to blink back tears.
I remember clearly things from long ago, while memories
Of yesterday are a blur of pain –
I ache for the kind of hours, the kind of days,
Which will not come this way again.
A life is built of instants, one by one, a smile, a word, a glance –
Memories, hopes, and dreams –
They become, in time, a woman, or a man,
Who are so much more than they seem…
Someone who opens their heart to love, and shares a lifetime
In the shape of a single day,
Who shares eternities, which fly too fast, and then too slow
When they leave you and go away.
I live in a place where time has frozen and I wait
In the still center of whirling centuries
Waiting for the day to fade, and the seasons to turn,
Dying leaves falling from bare trees.
The road I walk is empty, and frightening, and dark
Without your light to guide me –
I live in a place where time has stopped
Without you beside me.
Recent Comments