…of someone else’s work. I’m ignoring today’s prompt and reposting an old work that I wrote about 2 years ago when my friend was ‘stolen’ from the world by cancer. I wrote this roughly a week or so after her passing. I think it’s called “reply poetry” – when you have two subjects holding a conversation of sorts.
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Sorrow:
My memories run rampant,
over shared laughs and hen-cacklin’ sessions
that lit the heart in a blast of colors
too vivid to be named.
The stars seems to pulse in darkling light
more than any other night I’ve lived
…yet blurred by this grey river that flows from my eyes.
Joy:
Embrace the grief but share it with me,
and I shall help shoulder the bitter burden
turning it faintly sweet.
I will place a bubble in your heart, filled with light
and giggles and frozen snapshots of togetherness
and name it treasure, this mélange of bittersweet beauty.
Sorrow:
All seems to lead me into grief,
the scent of hay arose and lit upon me and I thought of open fields,
endless and waiting for some lucky child to lay upon the ground
staring at clouds, dreaming
and was brought to tears,
thinking no more dreams for her.
And what if my mind turns traitor and my memories of her,
now done in bright colors, fades to
ever fainter hues, finally all that is left is dust and ashes
which puff away into the wind’s ever-traveling hands?
Joy:
Understand it cannot, will not be.
For I am a phoenix and from the ashes
I rise, again and again
and protect your cherished reminisces in
gilden-fire and wings of molten love.
You are a chalice of silver and pearls
and I will fill your hollow spot with a sacred infusion
of amber grace, tawny strength and saffron-infused love
and watch them swirl gently together, each bead and drop suffusing your soul
as it sips, restoring that which you have lost.
Sorrow:
Everything is blossoming, every hue of green is painted by
Nature’s hands. Petals of pink, white, and lilac float on the breeze,
like a pastel snowstorm and I think how beautiful, how lush, how vibrant
it all is and count myself lucky for a heartbeat before I crash
and remember, she won’t see it and I feel ashamed and guilty
for my brief touch to your hand,
…but even moreso, I am run through
with a lance of sadness and grief, that I cannot share it with her
ever again.
Joy:
Oh how wrong you are! You can, you will, and you must
share it with her every fresh spring. This is your gift to her, so that she
will carry on in you and be remembered. As you feel the breeze on your cheek,
inhale the delicate lacy scent of dogwood abloom,
and marvel at just how very blue and clear the sky is above
against that explosion of green, you carry her in the bubble I gave you
and from within this, she is witness to it as you are. As you feel, she is.
And that is the most beautiful gift you have to offer,
that she lives on, in your living.
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(c) jp 4/2010
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