I watch the river split and billow like the sleeves of your old sweater, the blue grey one tortured and stretched in all the directions your body grew. I think of your face in a morning of careless wind when blood seems to push memory backward. I feel your body shake like an orchid held fast in its charcoal. Your last embrace leaves the sky bare, and empties my eyes of tears that fall like black oil, expressionless as the sleeping face of a child
The image of the old sweater being “tortured and stretched” by a growing body is unforgettable. It makes the loss feel physical before the poem ever names it. Then the final embrace strips even the sky bare. A brief poem, but it leaves behind the weight of something much larger than its length.
Leaf buds unfurl spread solar Panels like arms to reach out, absorb energy grow, shades, and washed by the rain. Release breaths of fresh air til sun sets low; leaves fall. No longer shades but recall sunlight to warm on cold days. Loss is gain solstice regained.
Thanks to @Sue Henger for this restack
Thank you for sharing this poem, @Jane Deegan
You're welcome!
Thank you for this restack, @Lique
Thank you, Diane, and @Blue Citizen 77 fir this restack 💙💙
Thank you for this restack, @Nora O’Dowd
Thanks for sharing this, @Alison Redford
Thanks for the share, @Stanley Wotring and enjoy your Sunday!
You too!
Good Sunday, @Joan Vinall-Cox, Ph.D. 🇨🇦 , and thank you for sharing this poem.
Thanks to @Teresa Gonzales for this restack!
Thank you for sharing this, @rena 🌻🌻
The image of the old sweater being “tortured and stretched” by a growing body is unforgettable. It makes the loss feel physical before the poem ever names it. Then the final embrace strips even the sky bare. A brief poem, but it leaves behind the weight of something much larger than its length.
Thank you, Antonio. Perhaps grief is simply love refusing to vanish.
yes
Is today for grief-filled poems? I have read a couple.
There is something irreverent in calling a grief filled poem, beautiful. So, I would say, I felt this one.
Thank you, Nazish. Maybe grief is just love with no place to go.
it is beautiful though..
This is excellent, Paul. These connections come at you unexpectedly, and might seem disparate, but are always aligned. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you. I used this idea in a longer poem, maybe a year ago (?) but this one is a sort of capsule summary of the longer one.
Wonderfully expressed, Paul Wittenberger! This lovely poem registered visual imagery as I read.
The river that split? I was thinking of that at the time I wrote the poem. I imagined seeing it from a high place.
"eyes of tears that fall / like black oil": striking image!
Thank you for reading and commenting, Maureen.
Leaf buds unfurl spread solar Panels like arms to reach out, absorb energy grow, shades, and washed by the rain. Release breaths of fresh air til sun sets low; leaves fall. No longer shades but recall sunlight to warm on cold days. Loss is gain solstice regained.
Have the days begun to feel shorter, Richbee?
Slowly the sun downs earlier, but leaves shield to reflect heat and sun bubbles in my cool sparkling water.