I wait for what will not come and still its nonarrival shapes me more deeply than arrival ever could. The day arranges itself around that absence, light falling where nothing stands, a chair pulled slightly back from no one. I have learned the contours of what does not happen: the hour that does not break, the word that does not cross, the hand that does not reach. This is not emptiness. It has weight, a pressure that settles into the smallest parts of me, making room by taking none. I move within it as if within a structure built without walls, everything open, nothing accessible. If it were to arrive now I would not recognize it. I have been altered too precisely by its refusal. What remains is not waiting, but the form waiting takes when it is given no end.
This is a poem about a man living in the hope that the miracle he desires will come, but knowing from experience that it simply refuses to do so. It's nonarrival is the one thing he has stoically learned to trust and rely upon, almost like a perpetually absent friend.
The day arranges itself
around that absence,
light falling where nothing stands,
a chair pulled slightly back
from no one.
On a side-note, I think that many ladies on Substack would like to fill that empty chair, so I wouldn't entirely rule out hope of a companion piece to this just yet!
Thank you, Martin. I think the speaker has been shaped so completely by what is missing in his life, that he can’t be present for what is actually there. The waiting is all he knows.
That’s the impression I had of him; and yet, we must leave room for miracles because everything is as it is until something happens that might change it. Of course, if he is no longer present, like some form of zombie, that becomes more difficult.
I think you’re right, Martin. He needs something—maybe that miracle you talk about—that will tear him away from a preoccupation that doesn’t allow him to be totally present in his own life.
Cyclical spin, well woven wait . Yet weigh less and easily lifts the tension bar. Tickles the ribs to no end in sight. The bus stop, but no one’s ever there. À sign of hope that one day someone will arrive.
It is like waiting for a relative to bring a turkey for Thanksgiving, they said they would bring, then show up with nothing but an excuse. You get mad at yourself because you knew they were not going to bring the turkey. When they say, "Trust me, this time I will bring the turkey."
This feels less like a poem about waiting than a meditation on how absence quietly reshapes identity. “The form waiting takes when it is given no end” is a remarkable closing insight. It lingers long after the final line. Thank you for sharing such a quiet and deeply thoughtful piece.
Thank you for reading, Antonio, and for your insightful comment. I do think that identity is shaped by many forces, especially by the active presence of love, understanding, friendship, sincerity, compassion, which have the power to move identity in one direction. When these same forces are absent or lacking, I think identity develops differently. I don’t necessarily mean differently in the negative sense, simply that the presence or lack of these forces is apt to shape our identity in different ways.
This reminds me of the time a writer I knew told me that he had been asked to review my first book for the NYTBR. So, every Sunday for months, I waited. It was awful, and the problem was they shouldn't have asked him because he had blurbed the book. He pointed that out (how did they not know?) and his contact said "OK, we'll find someone else." What happened next, nobody knows. I did finally get reviewed in the NYTBR six years later, but it was a terrible experience amazingly like what you limn in this stark, beautiful poem.
Paul, your poem stayed with me, partly because I kept stumbling over it. At first I thought it was the many negations. As I sat with it, I realized something else was happening.
Your poem expresses absence through comparison: what does not come, what does not happen, what does not reach. My own writing keeps searching for a different path. I try to describe what is present, even when I am writing about trauma, grief, or loss. I want the reader to encounter the landscape shaped by the absence rather than the absence through its opposite.
Our dialogue made me realize something about my own philosophy of language. Difference describes. Comparison begins telling a story. Once language starts comparing, it quietly introduces a frame, a standard, a hidden “compared to what?” Your poem showed me how differently we approach the same human experience.
Thank you for giving me a poem that became less a destination than a doorway. I ended up learning something about my own voice.
Thank you for sharing this poem, @Simone Senisin
Thanks for the restack, @Ray Sweatman
Thank you, @Teresa Gonzales
July 2, @Gary Spangler—June sure disappeared quickly enough—Thanks for sharing this poem.
Have an enjoyable Fourth of July, Paul!
You do the same Gary. Our city had its 4th of July parade last Saturday. Go Figure!
Thanks to @Blue Citizen 77 and Diane for this restack 💙💙
Thank you for sharing this poem, @Portia
Thanks for the share, @Stanley Wotring
This is a poem about a man living in the hope that the miracle he desires will come, but knowing from experience that it simply refuses to do so. It's nonarrival is the one thing he has stoically learned to trust and rely upon, almost like a perpetually absent friend.
The day arranges itself
around that absence,
light falling where nothing stands,
a chair pulled slightly back
from no one.
On a side-note, I think that many ladies on Substack would like to fill that empty chair, so I wouldn't entirely rule out hope of a companion piece to this just yet!
Thank you, Martin. I think the speaker has been shaped so completely by what is missing in his life, that he can’t be present for what is actually there. The waiting is all he knows.
That’s the impression I had of him; and yet, we must leave room for miracles because everything is as it is until something happens that might change it. Of course, if he is no longer present, like some form of zombie, that becomes more difficult.
I think you’re right, Martin. He needs something—maybe that miracle you talk about—that will tear him away from a preoccupation that doesn’t allow him to be totally present in his own life.
Cyclical spin, well woven wait . Yet weigh less and easily lifts the tension bar. Tickles the ribs to no end in sight. The bus stop, but no one’s ever there. À sign of hope that one day someone will arrive.
Thanks for my morning insomniac read.
One day someone will arrive, Richbee. And you will sleep the better for it.
Already been there like your optimism.
You're allowed more than one.
Once’s enough.
My situation, too!
Like football(soccer) GOAL!
It is like waiting for a relative to bring a turkey for Thanksgiving, they said they would bring, then show up with nothing but an excuse. You get mad at yourself because you knew they were not going to bring the turkey. When they say, "Trust me, this time I will bring the turkey."
Next time, don't invite them or their excuses for Thanksgiving. Or Christmas.
This feels less like a poem about waiting than a meditation on how absence quietly reshapes identity. “The form waiting takes when it is given no end” is a remarkable closing insight. It lingers long after the final line. Thank you for sharing such a quiet and deeply thoughtful piece.
Thank you for reading, Antonio, and for your insightful comment. I do think that identity is shaped by many forces, especially by the active presence of love, understanding, friendship, sincerity, compassion, which have the power to move identity in one direction. When these same forces are absent or lacking, I think identity develops differently. I don’t necessarily mean differently in the negative sense, simply that the presence or lack of these forces is apt to shape our identity in different ways.
This reminds me of the time a writer I knew told me that he had been asked to review my first book for the NYTBR. So, every Sunday for months, I waited. It was awful, and the problem was they shouldn't have asked him because he had blurbed the book. He pointed that out (how did they not know?) and his contact said "OK, we'll find someone else." What happened next, nobody knows. I did finally get reviewed in the NYTBR six years later, but it was a terrible experience amazingly like what you limn in this stark, beautiful poem.
Waiting is one thing. What arrives may be something less that you were waiting for.
Thank you, Lev, for reading and commenting.
Paul, your poem stayed with me, partly because I kept stumbling over it. At first I thought it was the many negations. As I sat with it, I realized something else was happening.
Your poem expresses absence through comparison: what does not come, what does not happen, what does not reach. My own writing keeps searching for a different path. I try to describe what is present, even when I am writing about trauma, grief, or loss. I want the reader to encounter the landscape shaped by the absence rather than the absence through its opposite.
Our dialogue made me realize something about my own philosophy of language. Difference describes. Comparison begins telling a story. Once language starts comparing, it quietly introduces a frame, a standard, a hidden “compared to what?” Your poem showed me how differently we approach the same human experience.
Thank you for giving me a poem that became less a destination than a doorway. I ended up learning something about my own voice.
What a wonderful comment to read the morning of this first day of July. Thank you, Jay—it means a lot to me.
Your comment made me smile 😊
😊
Ouch, ❤️🩹 so painful and yet beautiful
Hello, Ana, thank you for stopping by, and thanks for reading and commenting! ❤️😊
“His grimed hands lying light in the quiet interstices” -Faulkner
Have you ever noticed that we tend to concern ourselves more with what we don’t have than content ourselves with what we do have?
Tell me about it! Reading this wonderful poem is a sobering experience.
I think Albert Camus and Samuel Beckett are applauding this poem, Paul. I am as well. Daniel
Both fascinating thinkers and writers, Daniel. Honored to be considered in the same sentence.